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Abū al-Maʿālī, Muḥammad b. Niʿma b. ʿUbayd Allāh (d. after 458/1092), was a jurisprudent and author of the Bayān al-adyān, one of the earliest Persian works in the genre of al-Milal wa al-Niḥal (Religious Communities and Creeds). Information on Abū al-Maʿālī is particularly scant. The main source with a degree of information about him is the Bayān al-adyān itself. It is not known when he was born or when he died; but we do know that he heard traditions from Qāḍī Abū al-Fatḥ al-Balkhī ʿAbd al-Raḥīm b. ʿAbd Allāh (d. 454/1062; Abū al-Maʿālī, ed. Iqbāl, 23…

Bayān b. Samʿān (or Simʿān) al-Tamīmī al-Nahdī (d. 119/737), was a Kaysānī Shiʿi and a ghālī (extremist Shiʿi), from whom the Bayāniyya take their name. His father’s name Samʿān, or Simʿān (Simeon), suggests that he may have come from an Aramaean family background. His nisba is sometimes given as al-Tamīmī, but it is more likely that he belonged to the South Arabian Banū Nahd, who played an important role in al-Mukhtār’s rebellion in Kūfa in 66–67/685–687. Bayān’s name is sometimes erroneously recorded as Banān (see al-Kashshī, 301, 304; …

Al-Bustī, who is included in the eleventh generation of the Muʿtazilī ṭabaqāt, was one of the students of Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, and received his own theological doctrines from him (al-Ḥākim al-Jishumī, 385–386). By virtue of being one of the qāḍī’s students, he lived in Rayy for several years. It is said that he held a position of considerable prestige under his teacher and Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār would at times refer questions put to al-Bustī for a response (al-Jundārī, 7; al-Ḥākim al-Jishumī, 385–386).In 389/999 al-Bustī performed the Ḥajj with Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār. While passin…

ʿAbdān (d. 286/899), one of the most celebrated early Ismaili dāʿīs (summoner), author, and the chief assistant of Ḥamdān b. al-Ashʿath, known as Qarmaṭ, who led the Ismaili daʿwa (mission) in Iraq and southern parts of Persia. In some sources (Ibn Ḥawqal, 258), ʿAbdān is referred to by the laqab ‘al-Kātib’ (the scribe), and he is known to have been Ḥamdān Qarmaṭ's brother-in-law (see Ibn Ḥawqal, 258; Ibn al-Nadīm, 239; Ibn al-Dawādārī, 6/46). Nothing is known of ʿAbdān's life, nor of how or when he formally entered the Ismaili daʿwa. In his Zubdat al-tawārīkh (p. 19) Abū al-Qāsim Kāshā…

Amīnjī (d. Shawwāl 1010/March 1602), the son of Jalāl b. Ḥasan (d. 975/1567), the twenty-fifth dāʿī muṭlaq of the Ṭayyibī-Mustaʿlī Ismailis, was a prominent Dāʾūdī Ismaili Bohra jurist in India. He lived and died in Aḥmadābād in Gujarat (Ivanow, 88; Poonawala, Biobibliography, 185). Amīnjī ‘was an eminent Ismaili jurist who attained high ranks in the Dāʾūdī Ṭayyibī daʿwa’ (Daftary, The Ismāʿīlīs, 280). He wrote important works on fiqh, most notably commentaries on the legal works of al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān, and collected jurisprudential materials belonging to his con…

Ayyūbids, a dynasty of Kurdish origin that ruled Egypt, Syria, the Jazīra and the Yemen in the 6th/12th and 7th/13th centuries. The name of the dynasty is attributed to Ayyūb b. Shādhī, the father of Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-Ayyūbī. The Ayyūbids played a significant role in the history of the region, notably ending Fāṭimid rule, uniting Syria and Egypt, and defeating the Crusaders. Ayyūbid rule began in Egypt on the death of the last Fāṭimid caliph, al-ʿĀḍid, in 567/1171, with Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-Ayyūbī, the founder of the dynasty who had acted as the last Fāṭimid vizi…

Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Shīʿī, al-Ḥusayn b. Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. Zakariyyāʾ (d. 298/911), Ismaili dāʿī (summoner) and founder of the Fāṭimid caliphate in North Africa. Abū ʿAbd Allāh became associated with the Ismailis in the second half of the 3rd/9th century when Ibn Ḥawshab, the dāʿī of Yemen, sent him to the Maghrib. There, over a period of fifteen years, he gained such political strength and following that, with the help of the Kutāma Berbers, he was able to overthrow the dynasties of the Aghlabids, the Banū Midrār and Rustamids of Tāhart, and to lay the foundations of the Fāṭimid caliphate. The…

He is said to have died six months after Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Iskāfī (d. 240/854), another Muʿtazilī theologian, who wrote an exposition of the views of Burghūth and other followers of the Jabriyya (Ibn Nadīm, 213). According to Ibn Nadīm, Burghūth died in either 240/854 or 241/855. Based on a report by Ibn Taymiyya (1/206), Muḥammad b. ʿĪsā was called to debate with Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal during the miḥna (inquisition).Since Muḥammad b. ʿĪsā was a follower of al-Ḥusayn b. Muḥammad al-Najjār, the Burghūthiyya were said to have been one of the branches of th…

Abū Muslim al-Iṣfahānī (or Iṣbahānī), Muḥammad b. Baḥr al-Muʿtazilī (254–322/868–934), was a scribe, grammarian, man of letters, theologian and exegete, and a prominent figure in the ʿAbbāsid administration. Very little is known about Abū Muslim's life, particularly the first half of it. A few scattered historical reports indicate that he was probably born in Iṣfahān, where he began his studies, and that he travelled to Baghdad to further his education. Although Abū Muslim himself mentions being i…