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(a.), the usual name in Arabic for the Byzantine Emperor. The word, of course, represents the Greek Καĩσαρ and came to the Arabs through the intermediary of the Aramaic (cf. Fraenkel, Die Aramäischcn Fremdwörter im Arabischen, Leiden 1886, p. 278 sq.). The borrowing must have taken place at quite an early period as the word in Syriac later appears almost always in the form Ḳesar (cf. Payne Smith, Thesaurus Syriacus, s. v.). The Arabs, centuries before Muḥammad, had relations with the Byzantines (cf. A. Müller, Der Islam im Morgen-u. Abendland, i. 10 and the article g̲h̲assānids). Among th…

(a.), Lucidity, explanation. ʿIlm al-Bayān is often used synonymously with ʿIlm al-Balāg̲h̲a [see balāg̲h̲a] although strictly it only denotes a subsection of it. (A. Schaade)

(a.). A technical term in Arabic grammar. Ḏj̲āmid, literally “congealed” thence “inorganic” is applied to nouns as well as verbs. By an ism d̲j̲āmid we understand a noun, which “is neither derived ( mus̲h̲taḳḳ) from an abstract verbal noun ( maṣdar) nor is actually one”, i. e. “a concrete verbal substantive” (Fleischer, Kleinere Schriften, i. 167, iii. 540 et seq.). Examples: rad̲j̲ul, a man, baṭṭa, a duck (Wright, Arabic Grammar, 3rd ed., i. 106). Arab grammarians are not all agreed as to the position of the infinitive ( maṣdar) in this respect; cf. Fleischer, op. cit., i. 167 and Muḥamm…

, the fourteenth letter of the usual Arabic alphabet (numerical value: 90; cf. the article abd̲j̲ad). How the now usual form of Ṣād developed out of the Nabataean (still closely resembling the primitive Semitic form) form of the letter may be seen from plate I of the article arabia., arabic writing). As to its pronunciation, Ṣād was even in ancient times and still is an unvoiced, velarised (and according to Meinhof “stopped”) alveolar spirant, in which a groove is formed on the front part of the tongue. All these elements (except perhaps the la…

, the 22nd letter of the usual Arabic alphabet (numeral value 20; cf. the article abd̲j̲ad). The pronunciation of kāf as an unvoiced palatal explosive, found as early as Sībawaihi, has survived in modern academic speech. In the present day popular speech we find some variants (in addition to k) notably the affricate č (< c′ < k′). Cf. the article arabia, arabic dialects, i. 396b; and Schaade, Sībawaihi’s Lautlehre, Index. (A. Schaade)

, an Arab poet of the tribe of Banū ʿAdī. His proper name was G̲h̲ailān b. Uḳba b. Masʿūd (or Buhais̲h̲). His mother was called Ẓabya and belonged to the Banū Asad. He was a contemporary of Ḏj̲arīr and Farazdaḳ and in the feud between these two poets took the side of al-Farazdaḳ but without in any way distinguishing himself. He also wrote satires on the tribe of Imruʾ al-Ḳais, who found a champion in the poet His̲h̲ām. As the latter could only write rad̲j̲az verses, with which he could not hold his own against the more elaborate metres of Ḏh̲u ’l-Rumma, al-Farazdaḳ had to come …

Aflaḥ (or Marzūḳ) b. Yasār al-Sindī, an Arabian poet. He owes his surname al-Sindī to the fact that his father came from Sind; he himself was born in Kūfa and lived there as a client of the Banū Asad. He fought for the decaying Umaiyad dynasty with pen and sword, praising them and casting scorn on their adversaries. It is true, however, that when the ʿAbbāsides obtained the power, he lowered himself so far as to endeavor by singing the praise of the new rulers to wheedle himself into their favor. But…

, the eighth letter of the usual Arabic Alphabet, and fourth of the Abd̲j̲ad (whence its numerical value = 4). It is pronounced at the present day as in Old Arabic as a voiced dental explosive. Cf. A. Schaade, Sībawaihi’s Lautlehre, Index. (A. Schaade) ¶

, Aflaḥ (or Marzūḳ ) b. Yasār , Arabic poet. He owes his surname of al-Sindī to the fact that his father came from Sind; he himself was born in Kūfa and lived there as a client of the Banū Asad. He fought for the declining Umayyad dynasty with pen and sword, praising them and casting scorn on their adversaries. It is true, however, that when the ʿAbbāsids obtained power, he tried to insinuate himself into the favour of the new rulers by singing their praises. But the ¶ iron character of al-Saffāḥ was but little sensible to such fawning, and under the reign of his successor, al-Manṣ…

(a.), originally: “he who stands upright”, then (with bi, ʿalā , li or the genitive alone), he who takes something upon himself, takes care of something or someone and hence also has authority over them. Thus we find the pre-Islamic poet al-Ḳuṭāmī ( Dīwān , ed. Barth, Leiden 1902, no. 26) already speaking of a “ ḳayyim of water”, i.e. apparently the man in charge of it, the supervisor, and the poet Bāʿit̲h̲ b. Ṣuraym ( Ḥamāsa of Abū Tammām, ed. Freytag, 269, verse 2) speaks of the ḳayyim of a woman, i.e. he who provides for her, her husband. The first mentioned meaning, (supervisor etc…

, an Arabic metre. The name is said by the Arabs (see e.g. L.A., vii. 218 middle and Freytag, Darstellung der arabischen Verskunst, p. 135) to mean “trembling” and to have been given to the metre because it can be shortened to two double feet and thus become like a rad̲j̲zāʾ i. e. a she-camel which trembles with weakness when rising up. Other Arab explanations connect the word with rid̲j̲āza “counterpoise” (al-Suhailī on Ibn His̲h̲ām, ed. Wüstenfeld, i. 171, 10: ibid., ii. 58 below). Nöldeke’s suggestion ( W.Z.K.M., x., 1896, p. 342) that rad̲j̲az means something like rumbling (na…

(a.), one of the “beautiful names” of Allāh (see i. 303), according to some theologians the greatest name of Allāh (see Tād̲j̲ al-ʿArūs, ix. 36, 7 from below — ult. The word is of Jewish origin and means like its prototype, the Hebrew or the Aramaic (cf. Hirschfeld, New Researches into the Composition and Exegesis of the Qoran, London 1902, p. 69, 12 and note 89; Brünnow-Fischer, Arabische Chrestomathie, Berlin 1913, glossary under ḳwm) “the eternal”. Muḥammad, who uses it three times in the Ḳorʾān (ii. 256; iii. 1 and xx. 110) may have picked it up from the Jews of …

, the second letter of the Arabic alphabet (apart from Ḵh̲alīl’s arrangement of it; cf. the article abd̲j̲ad), as a numeral = 2. Graphically it is known as al-Bāʾ al-muwaḥḥada. Phonetically Sībawaihī defined it sufficiently according to our ideas as a-voiced, bilabial, explosive sound (ed. Derenbourg ii. 453, x6, ,8, 454, 7), our b. al-Bāʾ is also the name of the Arabic preposition bi (to, in, on; through [instrumental!]). For further information see grammars and dictionaries. [Cf. besides the Artt. Arabia: script and dialects], (A. Schaade)

, the nineteenth letter of the Arabic alphabet (numerical value 1000; cf. the article abd̲j̲ad); the character g̲h̲ain is a variant of ʿain. In most modern dialects it is pronounced as a voiced velar aspirate. The old Arab writers on phonetics describe it as a guttural; but it seems very doubtful if it ever really was pronounced as a post-uvular. G̲h̲ain has become ʿain in many modem dialects (for details see the article arabia, arabic dialects, i. p. 396b). Cf. A. Schaade, Sībawaihi’ss Lautlchre, particularly p. 19, N°. 3 and note 48; and the index. (A. Schaade)

, an Arabic metre. The name, according to the Arab view, which however is based on etymological considerations only, is said to mean either “haste” or “woven” (Freytag, Darstellung der arab. Verskunst, p. 136). The Arabs derived this metre like the rad̲j̲az [q. v.] from the hazad̲j̲ [q. v.] and gave it the eighth place in their series of classical metres. The constituent element in the ramal is the Ionic . We sometimes also have . This variant is however very rare (Freytag, Darstellung, p. 240 sq. and Nöldeke, Delectus, p. 236). Nevertheless its possibility combined with the frequen…

, the fifteenth letter of the ordinary Arabic alphabet (as a numeral = 800; cf. the article abd̲j̲ad). Ḍād is in form a variant of Ṣād (see the article arabia, arabic writing, p. 383b). In Sībawaihi’s time, Ḍād seems to have been pronounced as a voiced velar spirant, in which the air found an exit on both sides of the back of the tongue while the tip of the tongue lay close to the gum of the upper incisors. There was also a partial variety the so-called “weak Ḍād”. In modern dialects Ḍād is either a voiced velar alveolar explos…

(a.), properly “building” or “structure”, hence comes in grammar to mean “form” (e. g. Sībawaihi, ed. Derenbourg, i. 2, 2 infra) and particularly the indeclinability of the (vowel or consonantal) termination (the opposite is Iʿrāb). It must however be noted that words like ʿaṣan “stick” according to the Arab view have a virtually declinable ending and are therefore not regarded as mabnī. The Bināʾ moreover appears in all three classes of words (nouns, verbs and particles). (A. Schaade) Bibliography Sībawaihi (ed. Derenbourg), i. 2, 1—2, 18—3, 12 Itm Yaʿīs̲h̲, p. 400—405 and elsewhere Ib…

(properly “the new”), a metre, which was unknown to the Arabs and was first invented by the Persians (whence the name). It had originally the form fāʿilātun fāʿilātun mustafʿilun (twice). An abbreviated form faʿilātun faʿilātun mafāʿilun (twice) is also found. (A. Schaade) Bibliography Muḥammad Aʿlā, Dictionary of Technical Terms (ed. Sprenger etc.), i. 193.

(a.; ep. Hebr. aiyal) is an antlered mammal, described by Damīrī (Cairo 1274-1275 i. 165—167) as follows: Its horns are massive, and begin to grow when it has passed its second year. During the third year they shoot into branches, and this ramification continues until they form a tree-like antler. This is afterwards thrown off every year, but always grows again. The number of the “nodes” (antlers) corresponds with the number of the animal’s years. The aiyil is a good leaper; when chased it precipit…

(a.), properly “clarity, purity”, abstract noun from faṣīḥ, clear, pure. In Arabic rhetoric faṣīḥ means: 1. a single word, when it is not difficult to pronounce, is not a foreign or rare word and its form is not an exception to the usual; 2. a whole sentence, when it does not contain an objectionable construction, a discord, an obscurity (through a confusion in the arrangement of the words) or a metaphor too far fetched and therefore incomprehensible. The first kind of faṣāḥa is called faṣāḥat al-mufrad, the latter faṣāḥat al-kalām. There is also a faṣāḥat al-mutakallim. This is peculiar …