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, Abu ’l-Nad̲j̲m , commander-in-chief of the armies of the caliph al-Muʿtaḍid (279-89/892-902). He was the son of one of al-Mutawakkil’s mawālī , whose name cannot be established with certainty (Ḵh̲urr or Ḵh̲ayr?), and was first in service as an equerry to al-Muwaffaḳ, gaining from that time the favour of the future caliph al-Muʿtaḍid, who, whilst still regent after al-Muwaffaḳ’s death (Ṣafar 278/June 891), made him chief of police in Bag̲h̲dād and then, after his accession, com-mander of all th…

b. ʿUdus b. Zayd b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Dārim , Abu Nahs̲h̲al , poet and sayyid of the second half of the 6th century A.D. His name apparently appears for the first time in a tradition concerning the assassination by his brother-in-law Suwayd b. Rabīʿa b. Zayd (see Ibn al-Kalbī-Caskel, D̲j̲amhara , Tab. 60, and Register, ii, 521) of a son (or of a young brother) Mālik, of al-Mund̲h̲ir b. Māʾ al-Samāʾ, who had entrusted him to Zurāra, and the vengeance of ʿAmr b. Hind [ q.v.], in the first place on the seven sons of the murdered man and then on the Banū Ḥanẓala b. Mālik (Ibn al-Kalbī-Ca…

(— al-ʿuḳad , — al-ʿuḳūd , — al-Ḳabḍa bi ’l-yad , — al-yad), dactylonomy, digital computation, the art of expressing numbers by the position of the fingers. Some indications prove that the ancient Arabs not only at times used to show their outstretched hands, bending down one or more fingers when necessary, to indicate some small numbers (see I. Goldziher, in Arabica , viii/3, 272), but also had the ability to express larger numbers by holding their fingers in a given position (see G. Levi Della Vida, in Isl ., x (1920), 243), and ¶ it is not impossible that certain gestures used by the …

al-Rukūniyya (al-Rakūniyya), poetess of Granada born after 530/1135, d. 589/1190-1. Ibn al-K̲h̲aṭīb ( Iḥāṭa , i, 316) and other writers praise the beauty, distinction, literary culture, wit, and poetic gifts of this woman, who was remembered in later ages above all for her love-affair with the poet Abū D̲j̲aʿfar Ibn Saʿīd of the Banū Saʿīd [see ibn saʿīd ] family. Abu D̲j̲aʿfar was the inspiration of most of her poetry which we possess. After the arrival at Granada of Abū Saʿīd ʿUt̲h̲mān, the son of the Almohad ʿAbd al-Muʾmin, sh…

b. ʿayt̲h̲ al-ʿabsī (see his genealogy in Ibn al-Kalbī D̲j̲amhara , Tab. 133), one of the personages of the interval [see fatra ] between Christ and Muḥammad who, in Islamic tradition, was considered as a prophet; he was even regarded as the first prophet to arise amongst the descendants of Ismāʿīl. He is said to have foretold the coming of Muḥammad, and the latter is said to have greeted K̲h̲ālid’s daughter, who had come to him, with these words “Here is the daughter of a prophet whom his people has lost”; popular belief even went as far as to attribute to him knowledge of Sūrat al-Ik̲h̲lāṣ ( T̲h̲im…

, al-ḍaḥḥāk b. mak̲h̲lad b. muslim b. al-ḍaḥḥāk al-s̲h̲aybānī al-baṣri , traditionist, born at Mecca in 122/740 but established subsequently at Baṣra, where he transmitted from a host of scholars (notably al-Aṣmaʿī) a large quantity of ḥadīt̲h̲s gathered by himself, and especially from several tābiʿīs or Successors. He was considered as trustworthy, and some of his ḥadīt̲h̲s were included in the great collections; his biographers assert that he never fabricated a single one, although he is said to have declared that pious men never lie so much as in …

, Abū Muḥammad, a poet of Medina considerably less known than his brother Ismāʿīl b. Yasār [ q.v.], with the result that Yāḳūt, who devotes an article to him, calls him Mūsā b. Bas̲h̲s̲h̲ār; he gives him the nisba of al-Ḳuras̲h̲ī, as the person in question was in fact a mawlā of Ḳurays̲h̲, variously associated with the Banū Taym b. Murra, with the Banū Sahm or even with Sulaymān b. Abī K̲h̲ayt̲h̲ama al-ʿAdawī (of the ʿAdī b. Kaʿb b. Luʾayy). Since the reason for his cognomen has been forgotten, numerous explanations have b…

( or ), the nickname of a personage whom popular imagination made the hero of a few hundred jests, anecdotes and amusing stories. The oldest literary instance of this name goes back to the first half of the 3rd/9th century, in al-D̲j̲āḥiẓ, who numbers D̲j̲uḥā among others renowned for their follies ( Risāla fi ’l-Ḥakamayn , ed. Pellat, in Machriq , 1958, 431), and attributes to him futile schemes and an extraordinary tendency to make mistakes and blunders; the same author also quotes ( K. al-Big̲h̲āl , ed. Pellat, Cairo 1955, 36) a story borrowed from Abu ’l…

, Muḥammad Farīd , Syrian journalist, scholar and man of letters, was born in Damascus in 1876, of a father of Kurdish origin and a Čerkes mother. From an early age, he showed an interest in nature and in books, and it was reading which, combined with his innate curiosity and gifts of observation, made the greatest contribution to his intellectual development. Already bilingual in Turkish and Arabic, he learnt French from the Lazarist Fathers of Damascus, and this enable him t…

(Ar.), which in general means a relaxing, and then an interval of time ( e.g., the modern fatrat al-intiḳāl “period of transition”), is applied more particularly to the period separating two prophets or two successive messengers ( rasūl ); al-D̲j̲āḥiẓ ( Rasāʾil , ed. Sandūbī, Cairo 1352/1933, 133-4), in his exposition of prophetic history, uses the term fatra for the end of the period separating two prophets, making it clear that the “slackening” (of observance of the earlier prophet’s teachings) is not a “break” ( ḳaṭʿa ). Al-Masʿūdī ( Murūd̲j̲ , iii, 85) for e…

, Ibrāhīm b. ʿAlī b. Salama (b. ʿĀmir) b. Harma al-Fihrī , Abū Isḥāḳ , Arab poet of Medina, born in 90/709, who, if his genealogy is authentic, belonged to the tribe of Ḳurays̲h̲. Little is known of his life. A supporter of the ʿAlids, he attended and panegyrised ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Ḥasan [ q.v.] and al-Ḥasan b. Zayd [ q.v.], but he is said to have refrained from giving his support to Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh [ q.v.] when the latter revolted against the ʿAbbāsids. The Ag̲h̲ānī names several persons for whom he had occasion to exercise his poetic gifts, but it must…

( Demnate , Demnat ), a small Berber town situated on the edge of the Great Atlas in Morocco, 120 km. east of Marrākush, at an altitude of 960 m., on a small hill overlooking the fertile valley (barley, beans) of the Oued Tassawt, the slopes of which are covered with olive-trees and vines. The town is surrounded by a rectangular wall and includes a məllāḥ (Jewish quarter); in fact almost half the population, which stands at about 4,000, consists of Jews, whose numbers however are diminishing regularly. Local trade on a large scale in oil…

(a.), pl. mukaddūn , defined by al-D̲j̲āḥiẓ ¶ ( Buk̲h̲alāʾ , ed. Ḥād̲j̲iri, 46) as a man who practices kidāʾ ( ṣāḥib al-kidāʾ ), a term often replaced at a later date by kudya or takdiya and defined as “begging”, in fact denotes a wandering beggar or vagrant who, with the help of a remarkable talent for plausible lying and a knowledge of certain effective dodges, succeeds in opening up the purses of those simple persons who allow themselves to be taken in by his eloquent but mendacious words. The different w…

, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān (b. Sayḥān) b. Arṭāt al-Muḥāribī , a minor poet of Medina who lived in the 1st/7th century, on intimate terms with the governors or members of the Umayyad aristocracy of the town—al-Walīd b. ʿUt̲h̲mān b. ʿAffān, al-Walīd b. ʿUtba b. Abī Sufyān, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. al-Ḥakam and al-Walīd b. ʿUḳba b. Abī Muʿayṭ; indeed he belonged to a clan which was a ḥalīf of the Banū Ḥarb b. Umayya, a fact which incidentally won him the friendship and protection of Muʿāwiya. Although we possess a number of his verses, which belong to the c…

, the seven “jurists” of Medina, to whom tradition attributes a significant role in the formation of fiḳh . J. Schacht, who was especially interested in these fuḳahāʾ , wrote ( Esquisse d’une histoire du droit musulman , Paris 1952, 28; cf. idem, An introduction to Islamic law, Oxford 1964, 31): “The Medinans ... traced back the origin of their special brand of legal teaching to a number of ancient authorities, who died in the final years of the first and the early years of the second century of the Hegira. In a later p…

, Abū Yaʿlā al-S̲h̲arīf Niẓām al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. Ṣāliḥ al-ʿAbbāsī al-Hās̲h̲imī , Arab poet of the Sald̲j̲ūḳid period, a descendant of the ʿAbbāsid prince ʿĪsā b. Mūsā [ q.v.], who is named after his maternal grandfather, a certain Habbār. He was born probably in Bag̲h̲dād (though it is also said that he was born in Ād̲h̲arbayd̲j̲ān) before the middle of the 5th/11th century and followed the traditional pattern of study so thoroughly as to be included among the transmitters of ḥadīt̲h̲ , but he could not bring himself to take an interest in the…

, Abu ’l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn , Arab writer whose activity, in the words of Brockelmann (in EI 1, s.v.) “has been undertaken outside the well-trodden paths of professional scholarship”, with the result that he has been rather neglected by biographers and copyists and that a normally well-informed writer like Ibn al-Nadīm, who has obviously not read his works, takes him ( Fihrist , 154) for a Mag̲h̲ribī and devotes to him only a short, moreover probably truncated, article. In fact, the only reliable account which is available concern…

, by-name of several persons, who may be distinguished as follows: I. Muḥammad b. ʿĀʾis̲h̲a , Abū D̲j̲aʿfar , Medinan singer of unknown father. A pupil of Maʿbad and of Malik, he was regarded as the equal if not the superior of his masters, and celebrated for his skill at launching into a performance. He was highly respected at Mecca and at Medina, but, extremely vain, he would become very angry when asked to sing. He was invited to the court of Damascus, probably by al-Walīd b. Yazīd but du…

Abū ʿUt̲h̲mān ʿAmr b. Baḥr al-Fuḳaymī al-Baṣrī , was a famous Arab prose writer, the author of works of adab , Muʿtazilī theology and politico-religious polemics. Born at Baṣra about 160/776 in an obscure family of mawālī from the Banū Kināna and probably of Abyssinian origin, he owes his sobriquet to a malformation of the eyes ( d̲j̲āḥiẓ = with a projecting cornea). Little is known of his childhood in Baṣra, except that from an early age an invincible desire for learning and a remarkably inquisitive mind urged him towards a life of independence and, m…

(a.), a technical term of rhetoric corresponding approximately to “metonymy” and meaning the replacement, under certain conditions, of a word by another word which has a logical connection with it (from cause to effect, from containing to contained, from physical to moral, by apposition etc.). Etymologically, this term implies a sense of dissimulation found also in the word kunya [ q.v.], which is considered by such a grammarian as al-Mubarrad ( Kāmil , 677) to be derived from kināya . Kināya constitutes a particular type of metaphor ( istiʿāra [ q.v.]) and it is distinct from trope ( mad̲j̲…