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Circumambulation (Ar. ṭawāf, verbal noun of ṭāfa, walk, run, circumambulate) is the ritual act of walking or running around a sacred object, such as a stone or altar. The rite is known in many pre-Islamic cultures, Judaism, and Christianity and among Persians, Indians, Buddhists, Romans, and others. In Islam the circumambulation is performed around the Kaʿba, seven times in succession, the first three at a fast pace, beginning and ending at the Black Stone (al-ḥajar al-aswad). The Kaʿba must be kept to one’s left, so that one moves counterclockwise, contrary to the reported pre-Islamic ṭ…

The term “ Children of Israel” (Banū Isrāʾīl) is generally used in the Qurʾān—as it was earlier in the Bible, in its Hebrew form, Benei Yisraʾel—for the Israelites of the time of Moses. 1. The Qurʾānic evidence The Children of Israel are also referred to as Moses’s “people” ( qawm, e.g., Q 2:54, 60, 67; 7:128, 142, 155). As in the Bible (Genesis 32:29), Jacob is called “Israel” (Ar., Isrāʾīl) in the Qurʾān (3:93). And, as in the Bible (e.g., Genesis 36:31), the Qurʾānic term “Children of Israel” is not confined to Mos…

ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib (fl. sixth century C.E.) of the Banū Hāshim clan of the Quraysh was the father of the prophet Muḥammad, who was his only child. ʿAbdallāh's mother was Fāṭima bt. ʿAmr of the Banū Makhzūm clan of the Quraysh. According to some reports ʿAbdallāh was born in the twenty-fourth year of the reign of Kisrā Anūshirwān (r. 531–79 C.E.). He married Āmina, and, according to the earliest reports, he died when she was pregnant with Muḥammad. He died in Yathrib (Medina), while he was staying with the relations of his fat…

Budayl b. Warqāʾ al-Khuzāʿī, an early convert to Islam, belonged to the clan of ʿAdī b. ʿAmr of the Khuzāʿa. He lived in Mecca, and his dār was situated in the quarters of the confederates of the Qurashī clan of Sahm (al-Azraqī, 475). In one report he is identified as a mawlā (client) of al-ʿĀṣ b. Wāʾil al-Sahmī (al-Samarqandī, 1:465, on Q 5:106). Budayl is referred to in the sources as one of the chiefs of his tribe and as the shrewdest among the Arabs and one of the noblest among those who converted to Islam in the year of the conquest of Mecca (8/630) ( min kibār muslimat al-fatḥ). In the same year,…