Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE

Aḥmad II Bey (1862–1942) was Ḥusaynid bey of Tunisia (1929–42) under the French protectorate. His reign is generally seen as a period of courtly intrigues and submission to colonial rule, but his goal upon ascending to the throne was to regain real political power. Despite a character weakened by illness and the malign influence of his advisers, he discreetly resisted French rule, independent of Destour, the Constitutional Liberal Party, whose political views he did not share. Born on 13 April 1862, a son of ʿAlī (III) Bey of Tunis (r. 1882–1902), probably raised in the…

Abū Naṣr Aḥmad-i Jām (i.e., from Jām, a village in the mountainous regions of central Afghanistan) Nāmaqī (440–536/1048–1141) was a significant sixth/twelfth century Persian Ṣūfī closely involved with the Saljūq sultan Sanjar (d. 552/1157), who left behind an impressive shrine and legacy. He was born in Nāmaq, a small village near Tarshīz in Kūhistān. Aḥmad-i Jām's numerous honorifics include Shaykh al-Islām, Quṭb al-Awtād (“Pole of the [four] saintly props”), and, curiously, Zhanda Pīl (“the giant…

The Aḥmadīlīs were local rulers of Marāgha, the area around Rūyīn-diz, and parts of Azerbaijan from around 516/1122 to 617/1220, or shortly thereafter. They held Marāgha until 605/1209, and were still in control of Rūyīn-diz in 618/1221, when the Mongols sacked the region (Minorsky, Marāg̲h̲a, 501). The Aḥmadīlīs are initially mentioned as atabegs, or tutors, to young princes of the Saljūq dynasty. But the gradual decline of Saljūq suzerainty in the sixth/twelfth century also entailed the emergence of former atabegs, land grant (iqṭāʿ) holders, and military notables as semi-i…

Ṣalāḥ b. Aḥmad al-Aḥmadī al-Yāfiʿī (d. 1954) (also Laḥmadī) was a poet of Ḥaḍramī origin. Born in the village al-ʿAnīn, al-Aḥmadī emigrated to Hyderabad (Deccan) at a young age, visiting his homeland again in 1323/1905–6. His colloquial poetry (ḥumaynī) comments on social questions concerning the Ḥaḍramī migrants in India, many serving as soldiers in the armies of the Niẓām and private landowners. He is best known for a qaṣīda in which he criticised the conclusion of an advisory treaty between the Quʿayṭī sultanate in Ḥaḍramawt and the British in Aden in August …

Aḥmadiyya is a messianic Islamic movement founded by Ghulām Aḥmad in the Panjāb in the 1880s. 1. General Since its inception in 1889, the Aḥmadī movement has been one of the most active and controversial movements in modern Islam. The Aḥmadīs have conducted vigorous missionary activity in many countries of the world, establishing mosques and centres in European, North American, African, and Asian cities. The relationship between the Aḥmadī movement and mainstream Sunnī Islam has been dominated by the hotly contes…

The Aḥmadiyya, the most important Ṣūfī brotherhood in present-day Egypt, is said to have been founded by Sayyid al-Badawī (d. 675/1276). It consisted initially of a group of disciples attached to al-Badawī, who was himself probably affiliated with the Rifāʿiyya, a Ṣūfī order that developed in Lower Iraq, towards the end of the sixth/twelfth century, and traced itself back to the Shāfiʿī shaykh Aḥmad b. ʿAlī al-Rifāʿī (d. 578/1182). These disciples were the so-called “men of the roof” (aṣḥāb al-saṭḥ), who were known to perform meditations on rooftop terraces, whence the nam…

The Aḥmadiyya-Idrīsiyya is a set of Ṣūfī traditions or brotherhoods inspired by the teachings of the Moroccan mystic Aḥmad b. Idrīs (1163–1253/1749–50–1837) that includes the Khatmiyya, the Sanūsiyya, the Rashīdiyya, the Dandarāwiyya, and others, spread throughout the Muslim world. Ibn Idrīs had an evident influence on a number of Ṣūfī scholars of his time and the various students who sought him out, but, beyond building a house at Abū Qubays, in Mecca, for those of his students who remained behi…

The Aḥmadiyya-Rashīdiyya Ṣūfī order traces its origins to Aḥmad b. Idrīs al-Fāsī (1173–1253/1760–1837), a Moroccan scholar born in Maysur, on the Atlantic coast. Ibn Idrīs studied at the prestigious Qarawiyyīn religious academy in Fez, which was at that time famous for its innovative treatment of ḥadīth studies (the record of the traditions or sayings of the prophet Muḥammad, revered as a major source of religious law and moral guidance). Spiritually, Ibn Idrīs was a student of ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Tāzī (d. between 1206/1792 and 1213/1798) an…

Aḥmad al-Kabīr (c. 1834–97) was the oldest son and successor of al-Ḥājj ʿUmar Tall (d. 1864), leader of a jihād against “paganism” in the western parts of present-day Mali between 1852 and 1864. Aḥmad, also called Amadu Sheku and Lam Julbe, “commander of the Faithful” in the Pulaar (Fulfulde) language, was appointed caliph by his father in 1860, during the campaign against the “pagan” Bambara kingdom of Segu, which had flourished in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Shortly after this appointment ʿUmar emb…

Sayyid Aḥmad Khān (d. 1898), an Indian educational reformer, modernist religious thinker, and political leader, was born in Delhi on 6 Dhū l-Ḥijja 1232/17 October 1817. On his father's side his family were Ḥusaynī sayyids, who came to India from Herat to serve the Mughals in the time of Abū l-Fatḥ Akbar (r. 963–1014/1556–1605), and from that time remained close to the royal family. His father, Mīr Muttaqī (d. 1838), a sportsman and Ṣūfī, was a courtier close enough to Akbar Shāh II (r. 1221–53/1806–37) to be referred to by him a…

Aḥmad Khaṭīb of Minangkabau (1860–1916) was a prominent scholar of Islam of Sumatran origin, active in Mecca from the last decade of the nineteenth century until his death. He was considered the most knowledgeable teacher of his day in the Jāwī community in Mecca, a term used for Southeast Asians who come to the Holy City for devotional purposes or study. Aḥmad Khaṭīb was also known for his hostile attitude towards the Dutch. He was born in Kota Gedang, Minangkabau (West Sumatra), in 1860. His grandfather ʿAbdallāh had migrated from the Ḥijāz to West Sumatra to trade…

Aḥmad Khaṭīb Sambas (Aḥmad b. ʿAbd al-Ghaffār b. ʿAbdallāh al-Sambasī, d. c. 1292/1875) was the first Indonesian shaykh of the composite Qādiriyya wa-Naqshbandiyya Ṣūfī order and probably also the founder of the order, which soon became extremely influential throughout the Malay Archipelago. He was born in the West Borneo sultanate of Sambas in 1217/1802. Later legend has it that at a very early age he showed signs of spiritual powers (H. Abdullah, who lived in the region for many years, relates several anecdotes to that effect). After …

Aḥmad (b.) Lamīn al-Shinqīṭī (1280–1331/1863–1913), whose real name was Sidaḥmad Wuld al-Amīn, was the first Mauritanian author to be published in print. He was born in Mederdra, in the south of present-day Mauritania. A member of the scholarly and pious tribe (zawāyā, or zwāya) of the Īdaw ʿAlī, he received a religious and intellectual education appropriate to his social status, including Arabic language and literature and Islamic sciences. Like most native speakers of the Western Saharan Ḥassāniyya dialect ofArabic, he had an ear for p…

Aḥmad Lobbo (d. 1845) was a Fulfulde-speaking leader in Maasina, the inland Niger Delta region of West Africa. His full name is Aḥmad b. Muḥammad Būbū b. Abī Bakr b. Saʿīd, and his popular appellation Seku Aḥmadu Lobbo (Fulfulde seku is from Arabic shaykh). Aḥmad Lobbo led an early-nineteenth-century military jihād in Maasina. He reportedly secured a flag of allegiance to the Muslim movement led by Usman dan Fodio (ʿUthmān b. Fūdī, d. 1817), founder of the Sokoto Caliphate (1804–1903). Maasina was a Fulfulde-speaking-majority region dominated i…

Aḥmadnagar (Ahmednagar) is a city in Maharashtra State, in western India, and the headquarters of an eponymous district. The city lies on the plateau overlooking the Sinā River on the northwestern Deccan Plateau, at 19°05′ N, 74°44′ E, 120 kilometres northeast of Pūnā (Pune), 115 kilometres southwest of Awrangābād, and 260 kilometres east of Mumbai. In 2011, the population was 350,905. Aḥmadnagar was established in 899/1494 by Aḥmad Baḥrī Niẓām al-Mulk (d. c.916/1510) as the capital city of the young Niẓām Shāhī sultanate. Located near the garden later kn…

Aḥmad, a name of the prophet Muḥammad, is the noun form that denotes pre-eminence (afʿalu l-tafḍīl), and it may be understood in the passive sense of “one deserving to be praised more than others,” or in the active sense of “one who praises (God) more than others do” (e.g., Ibn al-Qayyim, 129–30). According to Q 61:6, the name was used by Jesus when announcing to the Children of Israel the future emergence of the Prophet. Early Muslim exegetes such as Muqātil b. Sulaymān (d. 150/767) noticed the relationship b…

Aḥmad b. Khālid al-Nāṣirī al-Salāwī (1835–97) was author of Morocco’s first national history. He was born in the town of Salé, Morocco, on the Atlantic coast. He came from a family of shurafāʾ who were also shaykhs of the local Nāṣiriyya lodge. He received a traditional Islamic education in Salé and began a career that combined service in the local judiciary with teaching. In 1875 he entered the service of the Makhzan, Morocco’s central government, a decision that greatly broadened his horizons. For the next two decades he travell…

Gul Muḥammad Aḥmadpūrī (d. 3 August 1827) was a Panjābī saint of the Chishtī order, who wrote in Persian (the Chishtiyya is a Ṣūfī order founded in Chisht, a small town near Herat, around 318/930 by Abū Isḥāq al-Shāmī, the “Syrian,” d. 328/940, and was introduced into India by Muʿīn al-Dīn Sijzī, d. 627/1230). He was born into a family of Ṣūfīs that traces its descent to Maʿrūf al-Karkhī (d. c. 199–204/815–20), a famous Baghdadi ascetic probably of Persian origin. His ancestor Shaykh Ẓāhir al-Dīn …

Ahmad Rifaʾi (or Ripangi) (c. 1786–1876), one of the most radical Islamic reformers of nineteenth-century Java, was born in Kendal, Java, and died in exile in Ambon. Ripangi, as he is usually known in Java, was the sixth son of Raden Kyai Haji Muhammad Abu Sujak, also known by his Javanese name, Raden Sutawijaya, a penghulu (the highest level of religious official) in the Residency of Kendal. The position of penghulu in Kendal was subsequently held by a son of Sutawijaya’s older brother, and it was this penghulu who, in the 1820s, ordered Ripangi imprisoned for some time in Semara…

Aḥmad Rizā Khān Barelwī (1856–1921) was a Sunnī Muslim scholar of the Ḥanafī school, born in Bareilly, Rohilkhand, in north India. He was born just a year before the failed Indian revolt led in the name of the aged Mughal ruler, Bahādur Shāh Ẓafar, against East India Company rule. Its failure ushered in Crown rule in 1858 and led in 1877 to the proclamation of Queen Victoria as Empress of India. Aḥmad Rizā's life was thus lived out in the context of British colonial rule in India. Barring two pilgrimages to Mecca and some brief visits to cities within India, Aḥmad Rizā lived out h…