, the new moon, the crescent. i.— In Religious Law The new moon is important in Islamic religious law because, in the Islamic lunar calendar [see taʾrīk̲h̲ ], it determines, among other things, the date of the pilgrimage [see ḥad̲j̲d̲j̲ ], and the beginning and the end of Ramaḍān [ q.v.], the month of fasting [see ṣawm ]. The Ḳurʾān refers to the new moon in sūra II, 189 (a verse of indeterminate date; Gesch . des Qor ., i, 181): “They ask thee about the new moons; say: ‘They are fixed times ( mawāḳīt ) for the people and for the pilgrimage.’ “ Another relevant passage is sūra…

, eponymous ancestor of the tribe of the Banū Hilāl whom the Arab genealogists trace back to Muḍar according to the following lineage: Muḍar → ʿAylān → Ḳays → K̲h̲aṣafa → ʿ Ikrima → Manṣūr → Hawāzin → Bakr → Muʿāwiya → Ṣaʿṣaʿa →ʿ Amīr → Hilāl. Its three main divisions were the At̲h̲bad̲j̲, the Riyāḥ and the Zug̲h̲ba. This tribe naturally played its part along with the other groups of the ʿĀmīr b. Ṣaʿṣaʿa in the pre-Islamic tribal struggles or Ayyām al-ʿArab [ q.v.] and in the affairs connected with the beginning of Islam such as that of Biʾr Maʿūna [ q.v.]. It is likely that it did not support I…

[see al-ṣābiʾ ].

al-Ḥimyarī al-Kūfī , a magician of Kūfa, contemporary of al-Ḥad̲j̲d̲j̲ād̲j̲, with whom he was in relations after the building of the palace in Wāsiṭ (Yāḳūt, iv, 885; cf. also an adventure with a concubine of the caliph, Ibn Ḥad̲j̲ar, Lisān al-Mīzān , iii, 372-3). Ag̲h̲ānī 1, i, 167 quotes verses by ʿUmar b. Abī Rabīʿa that bear witness to a connection between the poet and the magician. He abtained his powers from a magic ring given to him by Satan to thank him for having defended him from children who were insulting him. He was also though…

(a.), a term in Islamic astronomy denoting the sighting of the lunar crescent. In this article, astronomical aspects are covered. Muslim astronomers from the 2nd/8th century onwards performed calculations to predict the visibility of the lunar crescent, of particular importance for the fixing the beginning and end of Ramaḍān and the festivals [see hilāl , i. In religious law; ʿīd; ramaḍān ; ṣawm ; taʾrīk̲h̲ ]. Over the centuries, the techniques and visibility conditions that they used became more sophisticated. Even the simplest procedures involved a knowledg…

, secretary and writer of the Buwayhid period, belonging to a family of Sabean scholars and secretaries which had come from its native Ḥarrān to settle in Bag̲h̲dād and which included among its members the historian T̲h̲ābit b. Sinān. Hilāl’s grandfather, Abu Isḥāḳ Ibrāhīm [see al-ṣābiʾ ], was director of the Chancery at Bag̲h̲dād and it was in his service that Hilāl (b. at Bag̲h̲dād in 359/969) began his ¶ career in the time of the amīr Ṣamṣām al-Dawla ( K. al-Wuzarāʾ , 151). Little is known however of the details of his career, except that he became in…

[see hilāl , rank , s̲h̲iʿār ].

, legendary hero of the Banū Hilāl. In the cycle of romances relating to the Banū Hilāl he is represented as the son of Rizḳ, ruler of the Bilād al-Sarw, and Ḵh̲adrāʾ, daughter of the s̲h̲arīf of Mecca. He was black-skinned and his original name was Barakāt. After various adventures in Arabia Abū Zayd goes with his people to the Mag̲h̲rib; there he is treacherously murdered by the other chief figure in the romances, Diyāb (or Ḏh̲iʾāb), but is avenged in turn by the killing of Diyāb. No documentary evidence h…

(a.), the verbal noun from hallala , form II verb, with two differing etymologies and meanings. (1) From hilāl , the new moon, meaning “jubilation or excitement at seeing the new moon” [see hilāl. i; talbiya ]. (2) From the formula la ilāha illā ’llāh , the first and main element of the Islamic profession of faith or s̲h̲ahāda [ q.v.]. The verbal form is here obtained by the so-called procedure of naḥt “cutting out, carving out”. The tahīl then denotes the pronouncing, in a high and intelligible voice, of the formula in question, which implies formal and basic recognition of the divine unity. (Ed.…

, a small independent region of South Arabia, now in the Upper ʿAwlaḳī Sultanate. It is one of the most fertile districts of South Arabia and is irrigated by canals from the Wādī ʿAbadān. The products of the soil, which is of volcanic origin, include indigo, which is exported to al-Ḥawṭa, d̲h̲ura and millet. Al-Ḥāḍina is inhabited by the tribe Ahl K̲h̲alīfa which claims descent from the Hilāl [ q.v.]. When the Hilāl emigrated from South Arabia they remained behind, whence their name K̲h̲alīfa. In the past they ordinarily acknowledged no authority, but in time of …

, Muḥammad b. ʿAlī b. Muḥammad, writer, teacher and muftī in Ṣanʿāʾ ( ca. 1173-1255/1760-1839). His opinions and his writings are seen as foreshadowing the Islamic modernism of the first half of the 20th century. Ras̲h̲īd Riḍā [ q.v.] regarded him as the mud̲j̲addid “regenerator”, of the 12th century A.H. ( Tafsīr al-Manār , vii, 144). Many of his books exist in modern (sometimes uncritical) editions. In his al-Ḳawl al-mufīd fī adillat al-id̲j̲tihād wa ’l-taḳlīd (Cairo, Muṣṭafā al-Ḥalabī) he argues that it is not necessary to follow one of the established Islamic schools of law or mad̲h̲āh…

, an ancient place-name in southeast Tunisia—which may be located in the neighbourhood of Gabès on the road leading from that town to Ḳayrawān—where, on 11 D̲h̲u ’l-Ḥid̲j̲d̲j̲a 443/14 April 1052, the Ṣanhād̲j̲a forces under the command of the Zīrid amīr al-Muʿizz b. Bādīs were annihilated by the Hilālī hordes, to whom the Fāṭimid caliph in Cairo had handed over Ifrīḳiya as a reprisal for its recognition of the ʿAbbāsid caliph of Bag̲h̲dād. There were not two battles at Ḥaydarān, taking place…

(a.), or, with the usual weakening of final hamza , Ṣābī , plural Ṣābiʾūn , Ṣābiʾa , Ṣāba , in English “Sabian” (preferably not “Sabaean”, which renders Sabaʾ [ q.v.]), a name applied in Arabic to at least three entirely different religious communities: (1) the Ṣābiʾūn who are mentioned three times in the Ḳurʾān (II 62, V 69, XXII 17) together with the Christians and Jews. Their identity, which has been much debated both by the Muslim commentators and by modern orientalists, was evidently uncertain already shortly after the time of Muḥamma…

, name of one of the Kurdish chieftains (and of the dynasty descended from him) who, in the 4th/10th century and at the beginning of the 5th/11th century, succeeded in founding and maintaining in Western Iran and Upper Mesopotamia more or less autonomous and lasting principalities. Ḥasanwayh b. Ḥusayn (Abu ’l-Fawāris) belonged to a branch of the Kurdish tribe of the Barzikānī, other groups of which were led by several of his relatives (Ibn al-At̲h̲īr, viii, 518-9). The death of two uncles (349/960 and 350/961) and the …

, Abū Ṭāhir b. Fak̲h̲r al-Dawla Ḥasan, Būyid prince and ruler in Hamad̲h̲ān [ q.v.] 387-412/997-1021. After the death of Fak̲h̲r al-Dawla [ q.v.], the amīr s proclaimed as his successor in Rayy his four-year-old son Mad̲j̲d al-Dawla [ q.v.] under the guardianship of his mother Sayyida and gave the governorship of Hamad̲h̲ān and Kirmāns̲h̲āhān to S̲h̲ams al-Dawla, who was also a minor. When Mad̲j̲d al-Dawla grew up, he sought to overthrow his mother and with this object made an arrangement with the vizier al-K̲h̲aṭīr Abū ʿAlī b. ʿAlī …

rūḥī , Palestine scholar, diplomat and politician, born in Jerusalem in 1864 to a well-known family of scholars tracing its origin to K̲h̲ālid b. al-Walīd [ q.v.]. He received a religious and linguistic education in Jerusalem, Nābulus, Tripoli and Beirut, and studied philosophy, law and politics at the Royal College, Constantinople. He continued his studies of political science and of ¶ philosophy and Islamic and Oriental studies at the Sorbonne; he later taught Arabic in Paris and attended the 1897 Orientalists’ Congress. In 1898 he was appointed Ottoma…

Abū Naṣr Bahāʾ al-Dīn (330-416/942-1025), official and vizier of the Buy ids in Fārs. Beginning his career in high office as deputy to S̲h̲araf al-Dawla’s vizier Abū Manṣūr b. Ṣāliḥān, he subsequently became briefly vizier himself for the first time in 380/990 and for S̲h̲araf al-Dawla’s successor in S̲h̲īrāz. Bahāʾ al-Dawla [ q.v. in Suppl.]. He was vizier again in S̲h̲īrāz in Ḏj̲umādā I 386/May-June 996, this time for over three years, and in 390/1000 in Baghdād as deputy there for the vizier Abū ʿAlī al-Muwaffaḳ. Sābūr, although a native of S̲…

, Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad b. Aḥmad Abī ʿAwn b. Hilāl Abi ’l-Nad̲j̲m , man of letters who flourished in the 3rd/9th century. His kunya is variously reported as Abū Isḥāḳ, Abū ʿImrān (Bag̲h̲dādī, Farḳ ), Abū ʿAmr (colophon of the Medina MS of his K. al-Tas̲h̲bīhāt , no. 4 below). The above genealogy, given by Yāḳūt ( Udabāʾ ) is confirmed by Bag̲h̲dādī and by an entry in the Berlin MS of his Lubb al-ādāb (no. 6 below). His great-grandfather Hilāl was a well-known poet and secretary; his grandfather Aḥmad was a scholar and poet, whose verses are quoted in the K. al-Tas̲h̲bīhāt ( al-ʿUmda , i, 205) and the K. a…

, Abū ʿAlī , one of the leading figures of the Būyid régime at the end of the 4th/10th century. His father, Ustād̲h̲-Hurmuz, one of the ḥud̲j̲d̲j̲āb of ʿAḍud al-Dawla, is said to have been born in about 300/912; on entering the service of the son and successor of the great Būyid in Fārs, S̲h̲araf al-Dawla, he became governor of ʿUmān for him and then, wishing to transfer his allegiance to the other son, Ṣamṣām al-Dawla, master of ʿIrāḳ, he had to return to private life (374/984). The son, Ḥasan, who…

(thus in al-Ṭabarī; in al-Masʿūdī, b. Farruk̲h̲-zād), Persian general and commander of the Sāsanid army at the battle of al-Ḳādisiyya [ q.v.] fought against the Arabs in Muḥarram 15/February-March 536 or Muḥarram 16/February 637, the battle in which he was killed. His father is described as the ispabad̲h̲ [ q.v.] of K̲h̲urāsān, for which province Rustam was deputy. In the lengthy account by al-Ṭabarī of the battle of al-Ḳādisiyya, derived mainly from Sayf b. ʿUmar, there is much folkloric material, doubdess derived from materials used by the ḳuṣṣāṣ [see ḳāṣṣ ], …