, a term referring to an extremist S̲h̲īʿī group which originated within the ʿAbbāsid movement in K̲h̲urāsān. The term was subsequently expanded to include at times the entire ʿAbbāsid s̲h̲īʿa , but unless otherwise stated it will be used in this article in its original sense. It is said in some sources to derive from al-Ḳāsim b. Rāwand or from Abu ’l-ʿAbbās al-Rāwandī, both of whom are otherwise unknown; other sources more plausibly derive it from ʿAbd Allāh al-Rāwandī, who appears in a list of propagandists ( duʿāt ) of Muḥammad b. ʿAlī b. ʿAbd Allāh b. al-ʿAbbās [ q.v.] (see Ak̲h̲bār al-dawl…

, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. ʿUmar b. al-Ḥusayn, one of the most celebrated theologians and exegetists of Islam, born in 543/1149 (or perhaps 544) at Rayy. His father, Ḍiyāʾ al-Dīn Abu ’l-Ḳāsim, was a preacher ( k̲h̲aṭīb ) in his native town, from whose name comes his son’s appellation, Ibn al-K̲h̲aṭīb. He was also conversant with kalām and, among other works, wrote the G̲h̲āyat al-marām , in which he showed himself a warm partisan of al-As̲h̲ʿarī. Al-Subkī who gives him a brief review ( Ṭabaḳāt al-S̲h̲āfiʿiyya , iv, 285-6) names among the list of his masters…

(a.), originally “obliterating, covering”, then, “concealingbenefits received” = “ungrateful”; this meaning is found even in the old Arab poetry and in the Ḳurʾān, Sūra XXVI, 18. In the Ḳurʾān the word is used with reference to God: “concealing God’s blessings” = “ungrateful to God”, see Sūra XVI, 57 and XXX, 33: “That they are ungrateful for our gifts”; cf. also Sūra XVI, 85. The next development— probably under the influence of the Syriac and Aramaic where the corresponding development took pl…

, God the Unique one, the Creator and Lord of the Judgment, polarizes the thought of Islam; He is the sole reason for its existence. ¶ Allāh was known to the pre-Islamic Arabs; he was one of the Meccan deities, possibly the supreme deity and certainly a creator-god (cf. Ḳurʾān, xiii, 16; xxix, 61, 63; xxxi, 25; xxxix, 38; xliii, 87). He was already known, by antonomasia, as the God, al-Ilāh (the most likely etymology; another suggestion is the Aramaic Alāhā ).—For Allāh before Islam, as shown by archaeological sources and the Ḳurʾān, see ilāh . But the vague notion of supreme (not sole) di…

, the fifth Imām of the Twelver S̲h̲īʿa. The epithet al-Bāḳir, short for bāḳir al-ʿilm , is explained as meaning either “the one who splits knowledge open” (i.e. brings it to light), or “the one who possesses great knowledge”. The Prophet Muḥammad is quoted as declaring that al-Bāḳir was already referred to by this epithet in the Torah (Ibn Bābawayh, ʿIlal al-s̲h̲arāʾiʿ , Nad̲j̲af 1385/1966, 233; idem, Amālī , Nad̲j̲af 1389/1970, 315). Al-Bāḳir was born in Medina on 3 Ṣafar or 1 Rad̲j̲ab 57/16 December 676 or 10 May 677 (or on the same days…

(Old Persian: Ahuramazda, “wise lord”; Pahlavi: Auharmazd; Persian: Hurmazd, Hurmuzd, Hurmuz), supreme god of the ancient Iranians, whose name was later given to the planet Jupiter and to the first day of each month of the ¶ Zoroastrian year. In the works of Muslim writers (especially the Iranians and particularly the poets) are found allusions which display a very imprecise knowledge of Mazdaism; although there occurs the name of Zoroaster (Zardus̲h̲t), one searches in vain for the name of Hurmuzd (cf. M. Moīn, Mazdayasna , parts 7 & 8 and the introd. by …

al-Ḳaṣabī (also al-T̲h̲aḳafī), a prominent Muʿtazilī theologian and ascetic of the school of Bag̲h̲dād, d. 234/848-9. He was a disciple of Abū Mūsā al-Murdār, and to some slight degree also influenced by al-Naẓẓām [ q.v.] of Baṣra. Little is known of his life except some anecdotes about his abnegation of the world, and the information that he introduced the Muʿtazilī doctrine to ʿĀna [ q.v.], and held disputations with Bis̲h̲r b. G̲h̲iyāt̲h̲ al-Marīsī [ q.v.]. He is the author of numerous works on fiḳh and kalām (al-K̲h̲ayyāṭ 81; Fihrist 37) and he had numerou…

, as a theological term meaning immunity from error and sin, is attributed by Sunnīs to the prophets and by S̲h̲īʿīs also to the imāms. In early Islam moral failures and errors of Muḥammad were freely mentioned, although there was an inconsistent tendency to minimize the shorteomings of the Prophet and in particular to deny that he had ever participated in the worship of idols. The term and the concept of ʿiṣma do not occur in the Ḳurʾān or in canonical Sunnī Ḥadīt̲h̲ . They were first used by the Imāmī S̲h̲īʿa, who at least since the first half of the 2n…

, a nisba referring to a number of scholars of the Al Nahīk in al-Kūfa. The best known is ʿAbd Allāh b. Muḥammad, a member of the extremist Muḥammadiyya [ q.v.] sect. ʿUbayd Allāh b. Sulaymān b. Wahb, who was al-Muʿtaḍid’s vizier between 279/892 and 288/901, appointed him, in recognition of past services, to the influential post of ʿāmil (director of taxes) of the Bādūrayā [ q.v.] district south-west of Bag̲h̲dād. Two years later he was dismissed after being accused by the Banu ’l-Furāt of embezzlement (al-Tanūk̲h̲ī, Nis̲h̲wār al-muḥāḍara , viii, Damascus 1348/…

, Abū saʿīd b. Abi ’l-Ḥasan yasār al-Baṣrī (21/642-110/728), famous preacher of the Umayyad period in Baṣra, belonging to the class of the “successors” ( tābiʿūn ). His father, whose name was originally Pērōz, was made prisoner at the taking of Maysān in Irak, and is said to have been brought to Medina, where he was manumitted by his owner, a woman whose identity cannot be definitely established, and married Ḥasan’s mother, K̲h̲ayra. According to tradition, Ḥasan was born in Medina in 21/642 (for a critique of this tradition see Schaeder, …

(a), cutting off. The Arabie verb ḳaṭaʿa has been very widely used in a variety of literal and metaphorical senses; this diversity is often of interest for both religious and cultural history. The infinitive ḳaṭʿ does not occur in the Ḳurʾān, but the finite verb occurs both in the literal and in a rather metaphorical sense: Sūra V, 42 (38): “Cut off the hands of the thief and the female thief”—the well-known prescription which has passed into fiḳh and is sometimes briefly designated as ḳaṭʿ al-liṣṣ ; Sūra VIII, 7: “and [Allah] may cut off the root of the Infidels”, i.e., extirpate them. Sūra II, 25 and XIII, 25 (27) “[those who] cut up what Allah has ordered to join”; Sūra XXIX, 28 (29) “will you cut the road?”, i.e., commit highway robbery; Sūra XXVII, 32 “I decide nothing”. To the early …

(a.) pls. ṣulub , şulbān , a cross, and, particularly, the object of Christian veneration. The term is used for cross-shaped marks e.g. brands on camels and designs woven into cloth, and in legal contexts for the instrument of execution. The Ḳurʾān refers in six places to the act of crucifying as a punishment. Four of these are set in ancient Egypt: in sūra XII, 41, Yūsuf predicts that one of the men jailed with him will be crucified and birds will eat from his head; in VII, 124, XX, 71, and XXVI, 49, Pharaoh vows to crucify the magic…

(a.), the verbal noun of t̲h̲allat̲h̲a , means literally “to make or call three”. It…

, the common collective (sing. ϒahūdī ) in Arabic for “Jews”. A less common plural Hūd is also used (e.g. Ḳurʾān, II, 111, 135, 140). The word is borrowed from Aram. ϒahūd , and ultimately from late bibl. Heb. yehūdīm , “Judaeans”, the latter itself derived from members of the tribe of Judah). The Ḳurʾān also uses a stative verb hāda , “to be Jewish” or “to practice Judaism”. 1. In the D̲j̲āhiliyya. Jews had lived in various parts of the Arabian Peninsula since Antiquity, and the numbers of those living in northwestern Arabia must have been swelled by refugees from Judaea when the great rebellions against Rome were suppressed in A.D. 70 and 135. By the late D̲j̲āhilī period, the Jews of the peninsula spoke Arabic, were organised into clans and tribes, and were generally highly assimilated into Arab society. Their numbers probably also included a greater or lesser number of indigenous Arabs …

(a.), soul. Nafs , in early Arabic poetry meant the self or person, while rūḥ meant breath and wind. Beginning with the Ḳurʾān, nafs also means soul, and rūḥ means a special angel messenger and a special divine quality. Only in post-Ḳurʾānic literature are nafs and rūḥ equated and both applied to the human spirit, angels and d̲j̲inn . Since the two concepts of nafs and rūḥ are so closely connected, both will be considered here. I. The Ḳurʾānic uses. A. Nafs and its plurals anfus and nufūs have five uses: 1. In most cases they mean the human self or person, e.…

, Abū Muḥammad ʿAlī b. Aḥmad b. Saʿīd , born at Cordova in 384/994, died at Manta Līs̲h̲am in 456/1064, Andalusian poet, historian, jurist, philosopher and theologian, one of the greatest thinkers of Arabo-Muslim civilization, who codified the Ẓāhirī [see ẓāhiriyya ] doctrine and applied its method to all the Ḳurʾānic sciences. The life of Ibn Ḥazm and the political events of his time. E. García Gómez has pointed out that the period in which Ibn Ḥazm lived corresponds to the “most tragic moments of Muslim Spain” and to “the decisive crisis of Isl…

(a.), in Arabic heresiography, the dualists. The word does not appear in the Ḳurʾān or in Tradition, but a K. ʿalā ’l-t̲h̲anawiyya had been written by Abu ’l-Hud̲h̲ayl (d. 227/841?) and a K. risālatihi fi ’l-radd ʿalā ’l-t̲h̲anawiyya by al-Kindī (d. ca. 256/870), according to the Fihrist (ed. Tad̲j̲addud, 204 1. 27, 318 1. 24). One finds the same word also in e.g. al-Nās̲h̲iʾ al-Akbar, and it became current in the 4th/10th century. However, this abstract, technical term seems to have been preceded by another one, to be found in al-Radd ʿalā aṣḥāb al-it̲h̲nayn , the …

, holders of materialistic opinions of various kinds, often only vaguely defined. This collective noun denotes them as a whole, as a firḳa , sect, according to the Dictionary of the Technical Terms , and stands beside the plural dahriyyūn formed from the same singular dahrī , the relative noun of dahr, a Ḳurʾānic word meaning a long period of time. In certain editions of the Ḳurʾān it gives its name to sūra LXXVI, generally called the sūra of Man; but its use in XLV, 24 where it occurs in connexion with the infidels, or rather the ungodly, erring and blinded, appears to …

(a.), Ḳurʾānic spelling Twryh . There are linguistic problems connected with the term, but it is certainly not from Hebr. Torah . It may represent a “crossbreed” between Hebr. Torah and Aramaic Ōriyyah . The term Twryh, appears in the Ḳurʾān 18 times, all in sūras from the Medinan period (of these, 13 times in sūras III and V). In half of these verses the word appears together with Ind̲j̲īl [ q.v.], and both designate two of the pre-Islamic heavenly Scriptures revealed to Jews and Christians respectively. The Tawrāt was revealed after the time of Ibrāhīm and I…

, a sect which flourished in the central and eastern parts of the Islamic worlds, and especially in the Iranian regions, from the 3rd/9th century until the Mongol invasions. (1). Origins. The founder, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. Karrām (thus vocalized by Samʿānī, who says that his father was a vine-tender, karrām , but there is some support for the readings Karām or Kirām), is known from biographies, in e.g. Samʿānī, Ansāb , fols. 476b-477a; D̲h̲ahabī, Mīzān al-iʿtidāl , Cairo 1325/1907, iii, 127; idem, Taʾrīk̲h̲ al-Islām , sub anno 255/869 (abridged version in Leiden Ms. 1721, fols…