, Yaḥyā b. Pīr ʿAlī b. Naṣūḥ , an Ottoman theologian and poet, with the nom de plume ( mak̲h̲laṣ ) of Newʿī, was born in Malg̲h̲ara [see malḳara ] (Rumelia), the son of S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ Pīr ʿAlī, in 940/1533. Up to his tenth year he was taught by his learned father and then became a pupil of Ḳaramānīzāde Meḥmed Efendi. His fellow pupils were the poet Bāḳī [ q.v.] and Saʿd al-Dīn, the famous historian [ q.v.]. He was an intimate friend of the former. He joined the ʿulamāʾ , became müderris of Gallipoli in 973/1565 and after filling several other offices became a teacher in the Medrese of Mihr u Māh Sulṭān [ q.v.].…

, “son-in-law”, an honorific title given to mīr muḥammad bāḳir b. s̲h̲ams al-dīn muḥammad al-Ḥusaynī al-astarābadī , Called also al-Muʿallim al-T̲h̲ālit̲h̲ , the “third teacher” in philosophy ¶ after al-Fārābī. This title properly belongs to his father who was the son-in-law of the famous S̲h̲īʿī theologian ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAbd al-ʿĀlī al-Karakī, called al-Muḥaḳḳiḳ al-T̲h̲ānī (Brockelmann, S II, 574), but it was extended to the son, who is more correctly called Dāmādī or Ibn al-Dāmād. Born at Astarābād, Mīr-i Dāmād spent h…

(a., pl. s̲h̲āmāt ) “naevus, skin blemish, mole”. This term seems originally to have denoted the coloured marks on a horse’s body, above all, where they are disapproved of ( TʿA , viii, 362 ll. 12-13). It is applied to all marks of a colour different from the main body which they mark, and to all black marks on the body or on the ground ( ibid., ll. 304). But from what we know at present in our texts, there is no difference between s̲h̲āmāt and k̲h̲īlān (sing, k̲h̲āl ) (the two terms are attested in Akkadian: cf. ḫālu , Bezold, Babylonisch-Assyrisches Glossar , Heidelberg 1926, 120, and sāmūti , Labat, T…

, Arab scholar and littérateur. He was born ca. 1775 (thus acc. to S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ū, in Mas̲h̲riḳ , viii [1905], 29) in Acre, Palestine, into a Melkite family, and died in 1816 in Paris. His grandfather was Ibrāhīm al-Ṣabbāg̲h̲, the personal physician and steward of Ẓāhir al-ʿUmar, ruler of ʿAkkā (so S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ū, op. cit., 27), and also his secretary and minister (so al-K̲h̲ūrī Ḳusṭanṭīn al-Bās̲h̲ā al-Muk̲h̲alliṣī in his introduction to M. al-Ṣabbāg̲h̲, Taʾrīk̲h̲ al-S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ Ẓāhir al-ʿUmar al-Zaydānī , 5). Mīk̲h̲āʾīl spent his early years in Damascus, from where he and his f…

, mūsā b. ʿīsā b. abī ḥād̲j̲d̲j̲/ḥad̲j̲d̲j̲ād̲j̲ (?), Mālikī faḳīh , probably born between 365/975 and 368/978 at Fās into a Berber family whose nisba is impossible to reconstruct. No doubt to complete his studies, but perhaps also because of other reasons hard to discern, he went to settle in al-Ḳayrawān, where his master was in particular al-Ḳābisī (d. 403/1012 [ q.v.]). He is known to have stayed in Cordova with Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr [ q.v.] and to have profited by the chance to follow the lectures of various scholars there, which his biographers list, without however gi…

(a.), in the true sense of the term, the act of believing and affirming that God is one and unique ( wāḥid ), in a word, monotheism. For the Muslim, it is believing and affirming what is stated by the first article of the Muslim profession of faith: “there is no other god but God” ( lā ilāha illā llāh ). Often, this first s̲h̲ahāda is specifically called kalimat al-tawḥīd , just as the name sūrat al-Tawḥīd is sometimes given to sūra CXII ( al-Ik̲h̲lāṣ ) which declares that God is aḥad , and that He has no equal (cf. al-Ṭabrisī’s commentary). While the term tawḥīd is itself abs…

, Abu ’l-ʿAbbās Aḥmad b. ʿUmar , a famous S̲h̲āfiʿī scholar and polemicist of the 3rd/9th century. His grandfather, Surayd̲j̲ (d. 235/849-50), had been a pious traditionist (Ibn Tag̲h̲rībirdī, Nud̲j̲ūm , ed. Juynboll, i, 709 f.; Cairo ed., ii, 281 f.). He is considered the most prominent S̲h̲āfiʿī scholar after S̲h̲āfiʿī’s own companions, and some ranked him even higher than al-Muzanī [ q.v.]. His main teacher was ʿUt̲h̲mān b. Saʿīd al-Anmāṭī (d. 288/901), a disciple of Muzanī. The tradition according to which each century would see a renovator of Islam wa…

, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Yūsuf al-Kātib , author of the Mafātiḥ al-ʿulūm (“Keys of the sciences”), on which his fame rests. His origins were in the north-eastern part of the Iranian world, either in K̲h̲wārazm, south of the Aral sea [ q.v.], or, as al-Maḳrīzī would suggest, in Balk̲h̲ in what is now northern Afghanistan ( K̲h̲iṭaṭ , Būlāḳ 1854, i, 258); of course, he may have been born in Balk̲h̲ while his family came from K̲h̲wārazm. The Mafātiḥ is dedicated to Abu ’l-Ḥasan ʿUbayd Allāh b. Aḥmad al-ʿUtbī, vizier to the Sāmānid Nūḥ II b. Man…

The first session of the Indian National Congress was held in Bombay in December 1885. It was a gathering of English-educated, middle class Indians—Hindus, Parsis, and Muslims—who formed themselves into an All-India political organization. Projected as the “National Assembly of India” and as the basis of an Indian Parliament, the Congress set out to promote Indian national unity and sought Indian representation in the British Government of India. The Congress asserted that it was a secular organization and emphasized that it voi…

, educational reformer and founder of Islamic modernism in India (1817-98). Aḥmad Ḵh̲ān (often called after his two titles of honour Sir Sayyid) sprang from an ancient Muslim family of high nobility. His forefathers came from Persia and Afg̲h̲ānistān, settled down in India about the reign of S̲h̲āh Ḏj̲ahān (1628-66), and became closely connected with the Mug̲h̲al Court. He was born on 6 Ḏh̲u’l-Ḥid̲j̲d̲j̲a 1232/17 Oct. 1817 at Delhi. His mother, a sensible woman, gave him a good education, but the schooling he had was no more than that taught in a maktab . On the de…

(a.), “providence”. The word which etymologically evokes the idea of care, solicitude, is not part of the Ḳurʾānic vocabulary. Nor does it belong directly to the vocabulary of ʿilm al-kalām , but to the language of falsafa (and of the is̲h̲rāḳ of Suhrawardī)—it was to be taken up after this by the later works and manuals of kalām which summarize and discuss its theses (among them al-S̲h̲ahrastānī, al-D̲j̲urd̲j̲ānī, etc.). It should be mentioned however that it has no place in the Taʿrīfāt of al-Ḏj̲urd̲j̲ānī. ʿInāya appears in the Ṣūfī lexicon, but only wit…

, the primary meaning is “putting to the proof, discriminatory test”, as gold, al-Ḏj̲urd̲j̲ānī says in his Taʿrīfāt (ed. Flügel, Leipzig 1845, 171), is tested by fire. Hence the idea of a temptation permitted or sent by God to test the believer’s faith, which, for the man wedded to his desires, would have the appearance of an invitation to abandon the faith. “Your goods and children are fitna ” (Ḳurʾān, VIII, 28; LXIV, 15). The term fitna occurs many times in the Ḳurʾān with the sense of temptation or trial of faith (“tentation d’abjurer”, according to R. Blachère’s tra…

, “Garden”, is the term which, used antonomastically, usually describes, in the Ḳurʾān and in Muslim literature, the regions of the Beyond prepared for the elect, the “Companions of the right”. E.g.: “These will be the Dwellers in the Garden where they will remain immortal as a reward for their deeds on earth” (Ḳurʾān, XLVI, 14). Other Ḳurʾānic terms will be considered later either as synonyms or as particular aspects of the “Garden”: ʿAdn and D̲j̲annāt ʿAdn . (Eden, e.g., LXI, 12), Firdaws (“Paradise”, sg. farādis , cf. παράδεισος XXIII, 11), the Dwelling of Salvation or of Peace ( dār al-Sa…

(pl. aḥwāl ; ḥāl is normally fern, but often in As̲h̲ʿarī texts is taken as masc; the form ḥāla is occasionally found in both Muʿtazilī and As̲h̲ʿarī sources), a technical term of philosophy employed by some of the Baṣran mutakallimūn of the 4th/10th century and the 5th/11th one to signify certain “attributes” that are predicated of beings. The term was taken over from the grammarians first by Abū Hās̲h̲im al-D̲j̲ubbāʾī [ q.v.] and subsequently used in two basic ways, one by Abū Hās̲h̲im and his followers in the Basran Muʿtazila and the other by al-Bāḳillānī and al-D̲j̲uwaynī [ q.vv.] in the…

, al-Ḥusayn b. Muḥammad Abū ʿAbd Allāh , Murd̲j̲iʾī D̲j̲abrī theologian of the period of al-Maʾmūn. Born in the city of Bamm, he apparently grew up there as well, and worked as a weaver at the embroidery house ( dār al-ṭirāz ); according to another version, he worked at a factory which ¶ produced metal weights. The sources are silent with regard to the dates of his birth and death; however, if we accept as true the report that he died of sorrow over his argument with al-Naẓẓām, the Muʿtazilī theologian, it is reasonable to assume that al-Nad̲j̲d̲…

, scholar of wide learning in the fields of Arabic language, poetry and adab , rhetoric, kalām [ q.v.] and of the early history of Islam; in addition he was an uṣūlī jurist [see uṣūl ] and an eminent writer of prose and poetry. Born at al-Madāʾīn on 1 D̲h̲u ’l-Ḥid̲j̲d̲j̲a 586/30 December 1190, he died at Bag̲h̲dād in 655/1257 or 656/1258, i.e., either immediately before or immediately after the capture of the city by the Mongols (20 Muḥarram 656/28 January 1258); since Ibn al-Fuwaṭī states that he was able to escape the massacre by the invaders by taking refuge in the house of the wazīr Ibn al-ʿAlḳ…

, the nisba of several religious figures and scholars from Nasaf or Nak̲h̲s̲h̲ab [ q.v.] in the environs of Buk̲h̲ārā (see al-Samʿānī, Ansāb , ed. Ḥaydarābād, xiii, 92-4). I. Abu ’l-Ḥasan Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Bazdawī or al-Bazdahī (i.e. from the village of Bazda near Nasaf), distinguished philosopher-theologian of the Ismāʿīlīs in Sāmānid K̲h̲urāsān and Transoxania, who is generally credited with the introduction of Neo-Platonic philosophy into Ismāʿīlī circles. He succeeded Ḥusayn b. ʿAlī al-Marwazī in the headship of the daʿwa [ q.v.] of Nīs̲h̲āpūr. As a dāʿī …

(later Fayyāḍī ), Abu ’l-Fayḍ b. S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ Mubārak al-Mahdawī , Persian poet, commentator of the Ḳurʾān, one of the nine jewels ( naw ratan) of the court of Akbar, younger brother of the historian Abu ’l-Faḍl ʿAllāmī [ q.v.], was of Yamanī extraction; one of his ancestors S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ Mūsā had migrated to Sind and settled at Rēl, a small place near Sīwastān (modern Sehwān). His grandfather S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ K̲h̲iḍr came down to Nāgor [ q.v.], where Fayḍī’s father Mubārak was born. In 950/1543-4 S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ Mubārak migrated to Āgra, where he married and his first child Fayḍī w…

, the nisba from the name of two small towns of Lower Egypt, in the mediaeval district of Manf [ q.v.], now in the Manūfiyya mudīriyya or province, in the southwestern part of the Nile Delta. See ʿAlī Mubārak, al-K̲h̲iṭaṭ al-d̲j̲adīda , Būlāḳ 1305/1887-8, xii, 6-7; Muḥammad Ramzī, al-Ḳāmūs al-d̲j̲ug̲h̲rāfī li ’l-bilād al-miṣriyya , Cairo 1953-68, ii/2, 217. ¶ A. The mediaeval Subk known as Subk al-Ḍaḥḥāk (modern Subk al-T̲h̲alāt̲h̲) was the place of origin of a celebrated family of S̲h̲āfiʿī ʿulamāʾ which flourished in Mamlūk times and of which the most outstanding figures were the S̲h̲ayk…

(a.). 1. ʿAmal , performance, action, is usually discussed by the speculative theologians and philosophers only in connection with belief [see ʿilm, īmān] or with ʿilm and naẓar . From Hellenistic tradition was known the definition of philosophy as the "knowledge of the nature of things and the doing of good" (cf. Mafātīḥ , ed. van Vloten, 131 f.). Many Muslim thinkers have emphasised the necessity or at least the desirability of this combination (cf. Goldziher, Kitāb Maʿānī al-Nafs , 54*-60*). But it is the intellectualism of the Greek philosophy, in…