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(a.), a maṣdar signifying cleanliness or freedom from disgusting matter. Some dictionaries suggest as a fundamental meaning the notion of cleanliness (e.g. Abu ’l-Baḳāʾ, al-Kulliyyāt , iii, 154) but the existence of the word in Syriac and Hebrew with a ritual meaning suggests that from its first usage in the Ḳurʾān it is a technical term (perhaps for the cleansing of menstrual blood flow; LʿA , iv, 505, s.v. ṭ-h-r , quoting Ibn ʿAbbās). The root may perhaps have to do with distinction, setting aside through cleansing (e.g. Ḳurʾān, III, 42). Ṭahāra is the rubric u…

(a.) “hair, pelt”. 1. General. The Arab poets, pre-Islamic as well as post-Islamic, often describe the hair of the women with whom they have fallen in love (al-ʿAskarī, Dīwān al-maʿānī , ii, 229; al-Raffāʾ, al-Muḥibb wa ’l-maḥbūb , i, 16-58; al-Nuwayrī, Nihāya , fann 2, ḳism 1, bāb 2; J. Sadan, Maiden’s hair and starry skies, in IOS, xi [1991], 57-88). The context in which these descriptions are found shows a fairly clear situation: the hair of the heads of beautiful women is observed by lovers away from the house, in the open air, on the public road,…

(a.), “determining something to be good or repellent”, a phrase referring in shorthand fashion to the controversy over the sources of the moral assessment of acts. Some argued for an assessment of things according to the dictates of common sense ( ʿaḳl ) or utility ( nafʿ ), and this led some to hold that the ḥusn or ḳubḥ of an act was part of its ontology as an accident of essence or as an aspect ( wad̲j̲h ) of the thing itself. Others argued that it is only the deontic divine command ( s̲h̲arʿ ) that gives moral value to acts. The “sources” of this discussion are impossible to establish; certa…

, the name of a family of influential legists in 4th-5th/10th-11th-century Nīs̲h̲āpūr. 1. Abū Sahl Muḥammad b. Sulaymān b. Muḥammad b. Hārūn b. ʿĪsā b. Ibrāhīm b. Bis̲h̲r al-Ḥanafī ( nasab an) al-ʿId̲j̲lī, al-Imām al-Ustād̲h̲. A Shāfiʿī legist during S̲h̲āfiʿism’s formative period, al-Ṣuʿlūkī was born in Iṣfahān in 296/908 and studied there with his father. He first “audited” ḥadīt̲h̲ at the age of 9. After studying ḥadīt̲h̲ with his father, he travelled to Baṣra in 320/932. At this time, from an account in the Baḥr al-muḥīṭ (i, 150), it seems he must have …

(a.) “perplexity”, “uncertainty”, “doubt” in the philosophical sense (though not the vernacular English sense of “being suspicious, dubious”). In ritual, s̲h̲akk signifies uncertainty over the effective performance of an act. In epistemology, it is part of an epistemic ranking from yaḳīn (certainty) to ¶ g̲h̲alabat al-ẓann (likelihood), to ẓann (presumption), to s̲h̲akk (uncertainty), to s̲h̲ubha (suspicion). 1. In Islamic legal and religious practice. In the Ḳurʾān there are 15 usages, all in noun form, often in a formulaic combination with murīb , e.g…

, Muḥammad b. K̲h̲alaf b. Ḥayyān Ṣadaḳa al-Ḍabbī (d. 24 Rabīʿ I 306/4 September 918), historian, expert in ḥadīt̲h̲ , geography, Ḳurʾānic verse-numbering and other subjects. His best-known work is Ak̲h̲bār al-Ḳuḍāt , a biographical dictionary of ḳāḍīs , with a preface on the nature of judgeship. The work is arranged first regionally—according to the amṣār —then chronologically. His aim in the work is to provide “information about [ ḳāḍī s] and their rulings; the way in which they were appointed; their genealogies and tribes; their methods; th…

(a.), thankfulness, gratitude; acknowledgment (pl. s̲h̲ukūr ); it also has the meaning of praise, which is gratefulness with the tongue. 1. As a religious and mystical concept. As a Ṣūfī term for an internal state and its external expression, s̲h̲ukr is a station ( maḳām ) of the wayfarer ( sālik ) and has all the above meanings when referring to human beings. However, s̲h̲ukr on the part of God signifies the “requiting and commending [a person]” or the “forgiving” a man: or the “regarding” him “with content, satisfaction, good will”, or “favour”: and hence,…

(a.), the recommendation or permission to perform the ritual ablution with sand instead of water in certain cases, is based on two passages in the Ḳurʾān, IV, 43/46 and V, 7/9. The latter passage runs as follows: “And if you are in a state of impurity ( d̲j̲unub an ) purify ( fa-ṭṭahharū ) yourselves. But if you are ill, or on a journey or if you come from the privy or you have touched women and you find no water, take fine clean sand ( saʿīd an ṭayyib an ) and rub your faces and hands with it.” Sūra IV, 43/46, is nearly identical except that the phrase “with it…