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Amīr al-Ḥājj, was a title for the leader of the Ḥajj pilgrims. There were other titles for this position: amīr al-rakb (see al-Fāsī, 260, 290), amīr al-mawsim (al-Dārimī, 434) and imām al-ḥājj (Mālik, 1/400, 404). From the Shiʿi point of view, leadership of the Ḥajj pilgrims is a duty exclusive to the Imams: the Prophet was the first leader of the Ḥajj, and he was succeeded in this first by ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib and then the other Shiʿi imams (see al-Kulaynī, 4/466). For this reason the person given leadership of the pilgrims eit…

Present-day Buṣrā is the administrative centre of a sub-district of the same name in the Syrian Republic, and now falls under the jurisdiction of the district of Darʿā. In 2004 the Syrian Central Bureau of Statistics stated that it had a population of 19,683 persons. It is close to the intermittent streams of al-Zaydī, al-Raqīq and al-Zaʿtarī, with a small spring called al-Juhayr nearby ( al-Muʿjam, 2/319). Buṣrā is on the road joining Darʿā in the west to Ṣalkhad (Biblical Salcah, Roman Salcha) in the east. It was regarded by Muslim geographers as part of the third ‘clime’ ( iqlīm), the cent…

ʿAbbāsa was a city in eastern Egypt in the Islamic period, 15 farsangs (90 km) from Cairo. It was situated at the farthest habitable point in this part of eastern Egypt, on the road to Greater Syria (al-Shām) between Bilbays and al-Ṣāliḥiyya, and was considered a part of Wādī al-Sadīr (Abū al-Fidāʾ, 108; al-Maqrīzī, al-Khiṭaṭ, 1/232). The foundation of the city is ascribed to ʿAbbāsa (q.v.), daughter of Aḥmad b. Ṭūlūn. When Khumārawayh b. Aḥmad married his daughter, Qaṭr al-Nadā, to the ʿAbbāsid caliph al-Muʿtaḍid, the bride set out for Iraq escorted…

Abū ʿAwāna, Yaʿqūb b. Isḥāq Ibrāhīm b. Yazīd al-Isfarāyinī (after 230/845–316/928) was a Shāfiʿī muḥaddith (traditionist) and faqīh (jurist). In order to hear and learn ḥadīth, he travelled to different parts of Iran, Iraq, Ḥijāz, Yemen, Egypt and Syria (Abū ʿAwāna, 1/344, 4/38, ff.; al-Samʿānī, 1/223–224; al-Dhahabī, Siyar, 14/417–419). Abū ʿAwāna apparently returned to Isfarāyin after his time in Egypt (see Ibn Khallikān, 6/394). In his Musnad, Abū ʿAwāna mentions his shaykhs and teachers such as his father, Isḥāq b. Ibrāhīm, as well as Muslim b. al-Ḥajjāj a…

al-Ḥijāz , a toponym for the territory lying parallel to the Red Sea coast on the western side of the Arabian peninsula. From the root ḥ-j-z meaning ‘to prevent’, the word Ḥijāz means a barrier that, according to Ibn Manẓūr, demarcates the geographical area bordered to the north by the Ghawr (the Jordan Rift Valley) and al-Shām and reaching southwards into the greater Arabian desert and steppe (al-Bādiya); it may also refer to the land between the eastern uplands of Najd and the Sarāh (the Sarawāt mountain range)…

Damascus, the capital city of the Syrian Arab Republic and the centre of a province by the same name in the south-west of Syria. Introduction EtymologyThere are numerous stories, many of a mythical character, about the founding and naming of Damascus. As regards the historical record, in the Tell el-Amarna tablets of Egypt, which date back to 14th century BCE, the city is named Ta-ms-qu and in the clay tablets of Ebla (Syria, Idlib province, ca. 2500 BCE) and in Assyrian texts (9th to 8th century BC) it is referred to a…