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( ʿAbd al-G̲h̲affār ), a descendant of Mūsā, brother of the Ṣūfī Ibrāhīm Dasūḳī (see the preceding article) born in 1226/1811 in a poor family following the Mālikī ritual. After completing his elementary education in his native place of Dasūḳ, he attended the lectures of distinguished S̲h̲ayk̲h̲s at the Azhar Mosque, among whom was the celebrated Mālikī Muḥammad ʿIllīs̲h̲ (d. 1299/1882). After himself lecturing in the Azhar for a short time, he entered the employment of the st…

(a.), literally: "determination, resolution, fixed purpose"; thence: ¶ 1. In religious law, an ordinance as interpreted strictly, the opposite of ruk̲h̲ṣa , an exemption or dispensation (e.g. the dispensation from observing the dietary laws, if there is danger to health or life). ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-S̲h̲aʿrānī, in his Kitāb al-Mīzān al-Kubrā , consistently explains the divergent opinions of the several schools of religious law as expressing these two complementary tendencies. Cf. Goldziher, in ZDMG, 1884, 676 f.; idem, Die Ẓâhiriten , Leipzig 1884, 68 f. 2. In magic, an adjuratio…

, a branch of the S̲h̲īʿī “exaggerators” ( g̲h̲ulāt [ q.v.]). Its adherents believed that ʿAlī and Muḥammad were so like in physical features as to be confused, as like “as one crow ( g̲h̲urāb ) is to another” (a proverbial expression for great similarity, cf. Zeitschr. f. Assyr ., xvii, 53), so that the Angel Gabriel when commissioned by God to bring the revelation to ʿAlī gave it in mistake to Muḥammad. ʿAlī was, they say, appointed by God to be a Prophet and Muḥammad only became one through a mistake. According to Ibn …

(a.; sing, hawā , "predilection, inclination of the soul"; comp. Ḳurʾān vi, 151) is a term applied by the orthodox theologians to those followers of Islām, whose religious tenets in certain details deviate from the general ordinances of the Sunnite confession (cf. ZDMG, 1898, 159). As examples there are mentioned: Ḏj̲abariyya, Ḳadariyya, Rawāfiḍ, Ḵh̲awārid̲j̲, anthropomorphists, Muʿaṭṭila. From the above definition it may be inferred that in the sense of Muslim theology it is not proper to designate these tendencies as sects. (I. Goldziher)

(Ar., sing, watad ), literally "pegs", the 3rd category of the hierarchy of the Rid̲j̲āl al-G̲h̲ayb , comprising four holy persons, also called al-ʿUmūd , "the pillars" [see abdāl ]. Each of them is charged with the surveillance of one of the four cardinal points, in the centre of which they have their dwelling-place. (I. Goldziher)

, philosopher: he who studies falsafa [ q.v.], thence frequently used as an epithet for deep thinkers. The Arab philologists know the literal meaning of this word as muḥibb al-ḥikma (lover of wisdom). Al-Ḳindī [ q.v.] was known for preference as the faylasūf al-ʿArab (philosopher of the Arabs), presumably because he was a philosopher of genuine Arab origin in contrast to most Muslim philosophers who belonged to non-Arab nations (cf. the correct explanation of this name given to al-Kindī by T. J. de Boer in the Archiv für Gesch . der Philos ., 1899, xiii, 154 ff.). In popular language faylasūf …

(a), yellow: also, in distinction from black, simply light-coloured. Some Arab philologists and exegetes indeed claim for asfar also the meaning “black”; see the discussions thereon in the Ḵh̲izānat al-Adab , ii, 465. The Arabs called the Greeks Banu ‘i-Asfar (fem. Banāt al-A .: Usd al-G̲h̲āba , i, 274, abinfra) ¶ according to Ṭabarī (ed. de Goeje, i, 357, 11; 354, 15) signifying “Sons of the Red One” (Esau). In the Ḥadīt̲h̲ mention is made of the contest of the Arabs with the Banu ’l-Aṣfar and of the conquest of their capital Constantinople ( Musnad Aḥmad , ii, 174). Mulūk Bani ’l -Aṣf̣ar ( Ag̲h̲…

, nickname of the Arab poet D̲j̲arwal b. Aws , who traced back his genealogy sometimes to the ʿAbs, sometimes to the D̲h̲uhl, but who, in reality, was probably the natural son of a woman named al-Ḍarrāʾ; his nickname probably derives from his ugliness and appears to signify “deformed”. He belonged to the muk̲h̲aḍramūn [ q.v.], and Ibn Sallām places him in the second class of the poets of the d̲j̲āhiliyya since he is regarded as the rāwī of Zuhayr b. Abī Sulmā [ q.v.], he must have been born about forty years before the hid̲j̲ra , and his earliest poetic activities pro…

, al-Sayyid Muḥammad b. Ṣafdar , was one of the most outstanding figures of nineteenth century Islam. Cultured and versed in mediaeval Muslim philosophy, he devoted his life and talents to the service of the Muslim revival. He was, in the words of E. G. Browne, at the same time a philosopher, writer, orator and journalist. Towards colonial powers he was the first to take the political attitude since adopted by many movements of national liberation. He is known above all as the f…

"instrument", "utensil" (synonym of adāt plural adawāt ). i. In grammatical terminology, āla and adāt are found in expressions like ālat al-taʿrīf "instrument of determination" (= the article al), ālat al-tas̲h̲bīh "instrument of comparison" (= the particle ka) etc. The term āla (like adāt) does not seem to have been used by the Arab grammarians of the 3rd/9th century; in works such as that of Ibn Fāris, the word adāt is only met with once. Towards the end of the 4th/10th century the term ḥarf ("particle") may be regarded as signifying also the grammatical "instruments" later called āla and a…

(A.), pl. āt̲h̲ār , literally "trace"; as a technical term it denotes: 1) a tradition [see ḥadīt̲h̲ ]; 2) a relic : al-at̲h̲ar al-s̲h̲arīf (pl. al-āt̲h̲ār al-s̲h̲arīfa ), relics of the Prophet, hair, teeth, autographs, utensils al-leged to have belonged to him and especially impressions of his footprints [see ḳadam ]; these objects ¶ are preserved in mosques and other public places for the edification of Muslims. Relics are also called, both by Christians and Muslims, d̲h̲ak̲h̲īra ("treasure"). Bibliography I. Goldziher, Muh. St, ii, 356-68. For a description, with illustrati…

(A.; plur. of badal , "substitute"), one of the degrees in the ṣūfī hierarchical order of saints, who, unknown by the masses ( rid̲j̲āl al-g̲h̲ayb [cf. g̲h̲ayb ]), participate by means of their powerful influence in the preservation of the order of the universe. The different accounts in the ṣūfī literature show no agreement as to the details of this hierarchy. There is also great difference of opinion as to the number of the abdāl : 40, e.g. Ibn Ḥanbāl, Musnad , i, 112, cf. v, 322; Hud̲j̲wīrī, Kashf al-Maḥd̲j̲ūb (Zhukowsky), 269, (transl. Nicholson, 214), 300 (al-Makkī, Ḳūt al-Ḳulūb …

, the appointed term of a man’s life or the date of his death; a topic regularly discussed in the earlier kalām along with that of rizḳ or sustenance. The idea that the date of a man’s death is fixed presumably belongs to pre-Islamic thought. The word ad̲j̲al is used in the Ḳurʾān in a variety of ways, e.g. for the date when the embryo emerges from the womb (xxii, 5), for the period Moses had to serve for his wife (xxviii, 28 f.), for the date when a debt is due (ii, 282), etc. In creating the heavens and earth, the sun and moon, God fixed an ad̲j̲al for them (xlvi, 3; xxxix, 5 etc.); with this is con…

, holders of materialistic opinions of various kinds, often only vaguely defined. This collective noun denotes them as a whole, as a firḳa , sect, according to the Dictionary of the Technical Terms , and stands beside the plural dahriyyūn formed from the same singular dahrī , the relative noun of dahr, a Ḳurʾānic word meaning a long period of time. In certain editions of the Ḳurʾān it gives its name to sūra LXXVI, generally called the sūra of Man; but its use in XLV, 24 where it occurs in connexion with the infidels, or rather the ungodly, erring and blinded, appears to …

(Ar.), appearance, emergence; in theology: the emergence of new circumstances which cause a change in an earlier divine ruling. (Dozy, Essai sur l’Histoire de l’Islamisme , 223, gives the term too wide a meaning, as “mutabilité de Dieu” ). There are three sorts of badāʾ as it refers to the knowledge, the will or the command of God (S̲h̲āhrastānī, 110). The possibility of badāʾ is, in opposition to the divergent Sunnī doctrine, always treated in the chapter on the divine knowledge in “the textbooks of S̲h̲īʿite theology, but without reaching a definitive for…

(a.), originally “understanding, knowledge, intelligence”, and applied to any branch of knowledge (as in fiḳh al-lug̲h̲a , the science of lexicography), has become the technical term for jurisprudence, the science of religious law in Islam. It is, like the iurisprudentia of the Romans, rerum divinarum atque humanarum notifia and in its widest sense covers all aspects of religious, political and civil life. In addition to the laws regulating ritual and religious observances ( ʿibādāt ), containing orders and prohibitions, it includes the whole fie…

, āl al-bayt , "the people of the House", āl al-nabī , "the family of the Prophet", all mean the same; the term Āl Yāsīn also occurs. The origin of the phrase is to be found in the strong clan sense of the pre-Islamic Arabs, among whom the term al-bayt was applied to or adopted by the ruling family of a tribe (by derivation from an ancient right of guardianship of the symbol of the tribal deity, according to H. Lammens, Le Culte des Bétyles , in L’Arabic occidentale avant l’Hégire , Beirut 1928, 136 ff., 154 ff.), and survived into later centuries in the plural form al-buyūtāt f…

(a.) authorization, licence. When used in its technical meaning, this word means, in the strict sense, the third of the eight methods of receiving the transmission of a ḥadīt̲h̲ [ q.v.] (the various ways are set out precisely in W. Marçais, Taqrîb , 115-26). It means in short the fact that an authorized guarantor of a text or of a whole book (his own work or a work received through a chain of transmitters going back to the first transmitter or to the author) gives a person the authorization to transmit it in his tu…