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, from the Latin serra through the Spanish sierra , is the term applied by certain geographers of Muslim Spain to the mountains which stretch from east to west in the centre of the Iberian Peninsula. The best definition is given by Ibn Faḍl Allāh al-ʿUmarī. According to this author, the mountain range called al-S̲h̲ārāt stretches from the country behind Madīnat Sālim (Medinaceli) to Coimbra. This term therefore describes the mountains now known under the names of Sierra de Guadarram…

b. Bādīs b. Ḥabūs b. Zīrī , third and last ruler of the kingdom of Granada, of the Ṣinhād̲jī Berber family of the Banū Zīrī [see zīrīds of spain ]. Born in 447/1056, he was appointed at the death of his father Buluggīn Sayf al-Dawla, in 456/1064, as the presumptive heir of his grandfather Bādīs b. Ḥabūs. He succeeded him on the throne of Granada, while his brother Tamīm al-Muʿizz became independent ruler of Malaga. His reign consisted of a long series of troubles inside his kingdom, of armed conflicts …

(an Arabic relative adjective formed from the name of a Berber tribe of the Anti-Atlas in Morocco, the Hintāta), or, according to the more current Berber form, Īntī, the chief companion of the Almohade Mahdī, Ibn Tūmart [ q.v.], and the most active supporter of the dynasty of the Muʾminids (see ʿabd al-muʾmin ). It was his own grandson, the amīr Abū Zakarīyāʾ Yaḥyā b. ʿAbd al-Wāḥid who, in 634/1236-37, renounced his allegiance to the Muʾminids in Ifrīḳiya and founded, with himself and his descendants as rulers, the dynasty of the Ḥafṣids [ q.v.], which was to be called after this their …

, mark of ratification or initialling used in the Muslim west, from the time of the Muʾminid dynasty, on all official chancery documents. This ʿalāma , in principle inscribed by the sovereign’s own hand in the space provided for the purpose at the head of the document, beneath the basmala , consisted of a doxology, which varied under the different dynasties: al-ḥamdu li’llāh , under the Muʾminids and Saʿdids; al-ḥamdu li’llāh wa ’l-s̲h̲ukru li’llāh , under the Ḥafṣids; lā g̲h̲āliba illa’llāh under the Naṣrids of Granada. The ʿalāma was gradually replaced by illegible arabesque ini…

, Spanish Mérida, from the Latin Emerita, ¶ a town in the south-west of Spain, in the modern province of Badajoz, where it is the capital of a partido , on the right bank of the Guadiana. Now somewhat decayed, it has only about 35,000 inhabitants. It is on the Madrid-Badajoz railway and is also connected by rail with Cáceres in the north and Seville in the south. The ancient capital of Lusitania, Augusta Emerita, was founded in 23 B.C., and under the Roman empire attained remarkable importance and prosperity. Numerous remains of Roman buildings still testify to …

, Murcia , a town in the south-east of Spain, 43 m/140 feet above sea level in the centre of the famous huerta de Murcia (“gardens of Murcia”) watered by the river Segura (Ar. Wādī S̲h̲aḳūra [ q.v.] or Wādi ’lAbyaḍ , “the white river”). Murcia has a large population, 265,000 people (1980), and is the capital of the province of the same name and the see of a bishop; it has also a university; this province has over a million inhabitants, with an area of 11,317 km2. Its port, 40 miles to the south on the Mediterranean coast, is Cartagena, the Ḳarṭād̲j̲anna [ q.v.] or Ḳarṭād̲j̲cinnat al-K̲h̲ulafāʾ …

, title of a short anonymous chronicle recording the conquest of al-Andalus by the Arabs, the period prior to the foundation of the Marwānid amirate of Cordoba, and the history of the amirate itself up to the reign of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān III al-Nāṣir. This text, published on the basis of the unicum of the Bibl. Nat. in Paris, and translated into Spanish by Lafuente y Alcantara (Madrid 1867), has had little documentary ¶ interest since the discovery of the greater part of the Muḳtabis of Ibn Ḥayyān. It is an ill-proportioned and relatively late work, probably c…

, otherwise Abu ’l-ʿabbās aḥmad b. aḥmad al-takrūrī al-massūfī , Sudanese jurist and biographer belonging to the Ṣinhād̲j̲ī family of the Āḳīt, born at Tinbuktū (now Timbuktu) 21 Ḏh̲u’l-Ḥid̲j̲d̲j̲a 963/26 Oct. 1556. All his ancestors in the male line were imāms or ḳāḍīs in the Sudanese capital in the 15th and 16th centuries, and he himself rapidly became a faḳīh of repute in learned circles in his country. At the time of the conquest of the Sudan by the Saʿdid Sulṭān of Morocco Aḥmad al-Manṣūr [ q.v.] in 1000/1592, Aḥmad Bābā refused ¶ to recognise the authority of the court of Marrāku…

, Abū ʿAmr ʿAbbād b. Muḥammad b. ʿAbbād , the most important and most powerful sovereign of the ʿAbbādid dynasty [ q.v.] who reigned over the little kingdom formed by his father Abu ’l-Ḳāsim Muḥammad b. ʿAbbād, with Seville [see is̲h̲bīliya ] as his capital, at the time of the break up of the Umayyad caliphate of Spain and the rise of the reyes de taifas ( mulāk al-ṭawāʾif [ q.v.]). In the course of a reign of more than 25 years (433-60/1042-69), he very considerably increased his territory by making himself the champion of the Spanish Arabs against the Berbers in…

(a., pl. arbāḍ ), district or quarter of a town situated outside the central part or madīna [ q.v.]. This term, which is very frequently found in mediaeval Islamic historical texts of both the Occident and Orient, lies at the origin of the Spanish word ar-rabal, which has the same meaning. In the strongholds ( ḥiṣn or ṣak̲h̲ra ) of Muslim Spain, the name rabaḍ was given to the civil quarter situated below the strictly ¶ military quarter; it was also applied to the quarters of the lepers and of prostitutes, whilst amongst the Spanish Christians, it designated a parish. These quarters of a town …

or Mārtula/Martula , Arabic forms of the name Mertola (Span. Mértola), a small town of southern Portugal, situated on the Guadiana (Wādī Ana) at 35 miles/55 km. from the mouth of that river. This place, the ancient Myrtilis of the Romans, enjoyed a certain importance during the period of Islamic domination. It depended administratively on Béja [see bād̲j̲a ] and, according to Yāḳūt and other geographers, was the best-defended stronghold of all the west of the Iberian peninsula. At the end of the 3rd/9th century, it was the headquarters of an independen…

(valencia), a town in Spain, the third in size as regards population, which exceeds 500,000, lying on the east of the Peninsula, 3 miles from the Mediterranean and from its port, el Grao. It is connected with Madrid by two railway Unes, one via Albaceta, 306 m. (490 km.) in length, the other via Cuenca, 251 m. (402 km.) in length, and by road (218 m. = 350 km.); the distance as the crow flies is however only 188 miles. ¶ Valencia is the capital of the province of the same name and the diocese of an archbishop. Its situation is a striking one, in the ce…

, Abū Muḥammad , Maghribi chronicler from the beginning of the 13th century, b. Marrākus̲h̲ 7 Rabīʿ II 581/8 July 1185. We have no ¶ information about his life except for a few autobiographical data that allow us to some degree to piece together his career. He left, at an early age, his native town for Fez, where he made his studies, but returned several times to the Almohad capital before going to Spain. He stayed in Seville in 605/1208-9 and stopped for two years in Cordova. After a short visit to Marrākus̲h̲ he esta…

, Almoravid amīr and second sovereign of the Tās̲h̲ufīnid dynasty, who ruled over a large part of the Mag̲h̲rib and of southern Spain from 500/1106 to 537/1143. The reign of ʿAlī, who succeeded his father Yūsuf b. Tās̲h̲ufīn at the moment when Almoravid power was at its greatest on both sides of the Straits of Gibraltar, was marked by a series of events of which hitherto the main facts were known, but the exact course of which was not always clear, owing to a lack of detailed sources old enough to be reliable. To-day, there is available on the one hand the volume of the Naẓm al-Ḏj̲umān …

, the Arabic transcription of Poley, the old name of a stronghold in the south of Spain the site of which (as has been shown by Dozy, Rech .3, i, 307, on the strength of information supplied by a charter of 1258) is the modern Aguilar de la Frontera, a small town in the province of Cordova, 12 miles N. W. of Cabra and of Lucena. The town, which played a considerable part in the rising of the famous ʿUmar b. Ḥafṣūn [ q.v.] against the Umayyad amīrs of Cordova, is again mentioned in the 6th/12th century by the geographer al-Idrīsī. The ruins of a fortress which dates from the Mu…

, honorific of the fourth sovereign of the dynasty of the Almohads [see al-muwaḥḥidūn ], Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. YaʿḲūb al-Manṣūr b. Yūsuf b. ʿAbd al-Muʾmin . He was proclaimed on the death of his father on 22 Rabīʿ I 595/25 Jan. 1199. The beginning of his reign was marked by the suppression of a rising led by an agitator in the mountainous country of the G̲h̲umāra [ q.v.] and a long stay at Fās, during which the rebuilt a part of the wall of the ḳaṣaba of the city. Hearing of the rising of Yaḥyā b. Isḥāḳ Ibn G̲h̲āniya [see g̲h̲āniya , banū ] in Ifrīḳiya, he set out for the eastern part of his e…

, arabicised form of the Berber amzwaru , “he who precedes, he who is placed at the head”, equivalent to the Arabic muḳaddam and, like this, frequently has in North Africa the meaning of chief of a religious brotherhood ( ṭarīḳa [ q.v.], the superintendent of a zāwiya [ q.v.] or the chief of a body of s̲h̲orfā [ q.v.]. In those districts of the Mag̲h̲rib where the old Berber organisation has survived, mainly in the Great Atlas and Central Atlas, amzwār is sometimes the equivalent of anflūs , the political adviser to a body (cf. R. Montagne, Les Berbères et le Makhzen dans le Sud du Maroc …

, arabicised form of the Berber amzwār, he who precedes, he who is placed at the head, equivalent to the Arabic muḳaddam and like this frequently has in North Africa the meaning of chief of a religious brotherhood ( ṭarīḳa, q. v.), the superintendent of a zāwiya [q. v.] or the chief of a body of s̲h̲orfā (q.v., dialect form from the class, plur. s̲h̲urafāʾ). In those districts of the Mag̲h̲rib, where the old Berber organisation has survived, mainly in the Great Atlas and Central Atlas, amzwār is sometimes the equivalent of anflūs, the political adviser to a body; cf. R. Montagne, Les Berbères et…

(or al-Salāwī), S̲h̲ihāb al-Dīn Abu ’l-ʿAbbās Aḥmad b. Ḵh̲ālid b. Ḥammād al-Nāṣirī, a Moroccan historian born at Salé (Slā) on 22nd Ḏh̲u ’l-Ḥid̲j̲d̲j̲a 1250 (April 20, 1835), died in the same town on 16th Ḏj̲umādā I, 1315 (October 13, 1897). The genealogy of this writer can be traced in a direct line to the founder of the Moroccan brotherhood of the Nāsirīya, Aḥmad b. Nāṣir, who was buried in his zāwiya at Tāmgrūt in the valley of the Wādī Darʿa (Drā). He studied in his native town, which had in those days some reputation as a centre of learning, and was a minor r…

b. ʿAbd Allāh Abu ’l-Ḏj̲ais̲h̲ al-ʿĀmirī al-Muwaffaḳ bi ’llāh, a Muslim prince of Spain of the xith century, founder of the independent kingdom of Denia [q.v.] and of the Balearic Islands [q. v.]. He was a freed slave ( mawlā) of Christian origin of the celebrated ḥād̲j̲ib al-Manṣūr Ibn ʿAbī ʿĀmir [q. v.], whose nisba he adopted. Sent by the ʿĀmirids in the reign of His̲h̲ām II as governor of the district of Denia, Mud̲j̲āhid, when the Cordovan caliphate broke up, was among the first to proclaim his independence in the year 460 (1009—1010). Very short…