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Abū l-Faraj ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn b. Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. al-Haytham al-Umawī al-Iṣfahānī (or al-Iṣbahānī) (d. shortly after 360/971) was a celebrated man of letters, a historian with sociological interests, a musicologist, and a poet. He is best known for his great “Book of songs,” the Kitāb al-aghānī, one of the most important works of classical Arabic literature. He was born in 284/897, probably in Baghdad. Tradition ally, he was thought to have died there in 356/967, but recent research suggests his death should be dated to the early 360s, s…

In its general sense, the word “ education” denotes the act, process, and result of imparting and acquiring knowledge, values, and skills. This expression applies to both early childhood instruction and basic and higher learning that has the goal of providing individuals or groups of people with the intellectual, physical, moral, and spiritual qualities that will help them to grow, develop, and become useful members of the community and society. It also has applications in more purely spiritual or reli…

Day (yawm) together with the corresponding terms night (layl) and daytime (nahār), as well as the regular intervals of the day and parts or particular times of the day. Such apparently familiar concepts actually have considerable importance in the Qurʾān. Five sūras are named for times of day or daily natural phenomena: “The Dawn” (al-Fajr, q 89); “The Night” (al-Layl, q 92); “The Forenoon” (al-Ḍuḥā, q 93); “The (late) Afternoon” (al-ʿAṣr, q 103) and “The Daybreak” (al-Falaq, q 113). Times of day serve as a framework for the events of the history of revelation and someti…

The inability to read or write any language. This inability puts a person at a disadvantage and is regarded as a defect in societies where culture transmission and human communication occurs through writing (Meagher, Illiteracy, 1766b). In considering the situation in Arabia at the time of the prophet Muḥammad (d. 632 c.e.), however, quite different categories have to be applied: the common cultural and historical property of the tribes (see tribes and clans ) — their knowledge, crystallized in Arabic poetry, genealogies, and stories of tribal battles — was retained …

The act of instructing; imparting knowledge and information. Most of the numerous teaching-related passages in the Qurʾān are dedicated to the sound instruction of the believers in the faith (q.v.) and to their spiritual growth as individuals and members of the community (see belief and unbelief; knowledge and learning; ignorance). These passages include instruction on the creed, worship and other aspects of religious life. Some passages in the Qurʾān, however, also provide detailed instruction on secular matters (human relations; political, social, and legal affairs, etc.; see e…

The legal attachment of a person or group to another person, family, clan or tribe (see family; tribes and clans). The term “client” (mawlā, pl. mawālī) plays, along with “confederate, ally” (ḥalīf) and “protected neighbor, temporary protégé” (jār), a prominent role in pre-Islamic Arabia and in early Islamic society and law (see pre-islamic arabia and the qurʾān;¶ community and society; law and the qurʾān). A client was either under the protection of, or nominally equal to, those born into, and thus “full” member(s) of, a family, clan or tribe (Watt-Bell, Introduction, 6; see kinship ). …

Killing or injuring human life (q.v.). The Qurʾān bans bloodshed (safk al-dimāʾ), but it is specifically mentioned in the Qurʾān only twice (q 2:30, 84). Nevertheless, there are numerous less-specific references to this concept, just as there are in its biblical antecedents (see the numerous and thematically diverse biblical references cited in A. Khoury, Der Koran, i, 223). Furthermore, the qurʾānic accounts of human creation use blood as a metaphor for life (see blood and blood clot; biology as the creation and stages of life). God is said to have created man of a clay of molded mud ( ṣalṣā…

The ability to read and, often, to write. Literacy (framed in contemporary Arabic by expressions such as maʿrifat al-qirāʾa wa-l-kitāba, thaqāfa and their derivatives) is in many cultures considered a primary requisite for learning and education. In Arabia at the beginning of the first/seventh century, however, oral transmission of knowledge, memorization and the spoken word had a long tradition and were highly appreciated among the tribes (see tribes and clans; orality and writing in arabia; memory; speech). Until that time, the use of writing and written matter — due …

A qurʾānic epithet for the prophet Muḥammad that acquired significantly different interpretations in the course of Islamic history. Traditionally, Muslims understand ummī as “illiterate” and as unequivocally identifying Muḥammad as “the illiterate Prophet” (al-nabī l-ummī) — a view that has come to constitute an article of orthodox faith and spirituality in Islam (see illiteracy ). Recent research, however, recovering some of the earliest exegetical glossing, has suggested that ummī in the Qurʾān signifies the ethnic origin (being an Arab, Arabian) and the origi…