(a., pl. rusūm ), the act of drawing, a drawing, is not always distinguished from painting; nor can it be. Drawing was performed both as a preliminary to painting and to produce works to stand alone. It might be representational [see taṣwīr ] or decorative (historians of Islamic manuscripts confine the term illumination to decorative work). Naḳḳās̲h̲ī covers drawing and painting, whether representational or decorative; ṭarrāḥī is designing, in the context of pictures, the production of the underdrawing. In addition to the illustration of…

, capacity, power to act, maṣdar of the tenth form of ṭāʿ , to obey. If the term itself is not ḳurʾānic, the verb istaṭāʿ is used frequently in the text. Like its maṣdar, it was to become a technical ¶ term of the uṣūl al-dīn and the ʿilm al-kalām . The translation “capacity” is generally used (for example Tritton, Muslim Theology , London 1947, 68 and n. 2). Wensinckprefers “faculty”, others “power” ( pouvoir ). In this last sense, the ʿilm al-kalām readily considers ḳudra and istiṭāʿa to be identical (see remarks of ʿAbd al-D̲j̲abbār, S̲h̲arḥ al-uṣūl al-k̲h̲amsa , ed. …

, ʿAbd Allāh b. Sāʿīd b. Muḥammad al-Ḳattān al-Baṣrī (died 241/855?), foremost representative of a compromising theology during the time of the miḥna [ q.v.]. Nothing is known about his life. He contradicted the Muʿtazilī doctrine of Ḵh̲alḳ al-Ḳurʾān by introducing a distinction between the speech of God ( kalām Allāh ) and its realisation: God is eternally speaking ( mutakallim ), but he can only be mukallim , addressing himself to somebody, if this addressee exists. Speech is a permanent and unchangeable attribute ( ṣifa or maʿnā ) which subsists in God; but…

, “decisive proof”, “clear demonstration”. The term is Ḳurʾānic and signifies a “brilliant manifestation”, a “shilling light” come from God (iv, 174), a “manifest proof” (xii, 24), which may take the form of that supreme argument of authority which is the miracle (xxviii, 32). In correlation, burhān is also the decisive proof which the infidels are called upon—in vain—to furnish as justification of their false beliefs (ii, 111; xxi, 24; xxiii, 117; xxvii, 64; xxviii, 75). The first connotation of burhān is not properly right discursive reasoning; it is rather the manifest e…

, an Arabic word, properly “clarity, purity”, abstract noun from faṣīḥ , “clear, pure”. To summarize the definitive analysis of the concept as it was achieved in the work of D̲j̲alāl al-Dīn al-Ḳazwīnī, the K̲h̲aṭīb Dimas̲h̲ḳ (666-739/1267-1338), and his commentator, Saʿd al-Dīn al-Taftazānī (722-91/1322-89), in Arabic rhetoric faṣīḥ is applied to: (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…

(a.), lit: “to spit out” (see WbKAS , letter L, ii/2, 989). 1. In grammar. Here it denotes primarily the actual expression of a sound or series of sounds, hence “articulation” and, more broadly, the resulting “linguistic form”. It has ¶ always been distinct from ṣawt “[individual] sound” (cf. Troupeau, ṣ-w-t , and see Bakalla, 39 ff. and 49 ff., for its use in Ibn D̲j̲innī (d. 392/1002 [ q.v.]), which provides the base for the modern Arabic terms for phonetics, ʿilm al-aṣwāt , and phonology, ʿilm waẓāʾif al-aṣwāt (and note also the neologism ṣawtiyya [ q.v.] for ¶ the collective description …

, ink holder, a synonym for miḥbara , “inkwell”. The term is also used for miḳlama , a place for keeping the ḳalam or pen, and more generally for ḳalamdān , penbox. Islamic treatises describe the various ways of preparing ink and give different accounts of inkwells, miḥbara or dawāt , that were used in their time. The dawāt is, according to al-Ḳalḳas̲h̲andī, “the mother of all writing tools”, and “a scribe without an inkpot resembles a man who enters a fight without a weapon”. Following traditional religious relationships between the art of writing, me…

, “generation and corruption”. The expression is frequently found in the vocabulary of falsafa as the translation of the two Greek words γένεσις and φθορά, and it is also how Aristotle’s De generatione et corruptione is rendered in Arabic. The references entail an analysis of cosmology, a measure of psychology and some metaphysical developments of the Falāsifa . The ideas in question acquired various nuances of meaning, by measure of the system and theory of each faylasūf , but they always harked back to the Aristotelian meaning. The term is most fr…

, Abu ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. Saʿīd al-D̲j̲ud̲h̲āmī , writer and poet, born at Ḳayrawān about 390/1000. He received his initiation into poetry under the direction of Abu ’l-Ḥasan al-Ḳābisī and Abū ʿImrān al-Fāsī, into grammar under Muḥammad b. D̲j̲aʿfar al-Ḳazzāz and into belles-lettres under al-Ḥuṣrī [ q.v.]; he probably studied also under Ibn Abi ’l-Rid̲j̲āl [ q.v]. Although he was one-eyed, he succeeded in gaining admittance to the entourage of al-Muʿizz b. Bādīs [ q.v.] and thus was on terms of familiarity with the best minds of the age, though not without making en…

(a.), lit. “theory, philosophical speculation”, probably did not receive until the 9th century A.D. the meaning of research in the sense of scientific investigation as translation of the Greek θεωρία. With Aristotle, e.g. Metaph . 1064 b2 (translated by Eustathius/Uṣtāth at the beginning of the 9th century), and the Greek Prolegomena (Προλεγόμενα τῆς φιλοσοφίας) to the commentaries on Prophyry’s Isagoge , the philosophies were then divided into theoretical ( naẓariyya ) and practical ( ʿamaliyya ); the latter seek to obtain the useful or the good …

(a.), literally “nature”, functional equivalents ṭibāʿ and ṭabʿ , a term of Islamic science, philosophy and theology. Numerous Arabic-writing authors have defined the term, and a first survey shows that in a large number of cases these definitions betray Aristotelian origins. In such cases, therefore, it would be legitimate to analyse ṭabīʿa in the context of Aristotle’s φύσις, a term usually translated as “nature”, provided that the distinct and varying conceptual range of the Arabic term is kept in view and it is not considered identical to its Greek source. 1. Appropriations of th…

When combined into one expression, these two words have the overall meaning of the Decree of God, both the eternal Decree (the most frequent meaning of ḳaḍāʾ) and the Decree given existence in time (the most frequent sense of ḳadar). Other translations are possible: for example, ḳaḍāʾ, predetermination (usually eternal but according to some schools operating within time); ḳadar, decree (usually operating within time but according to some schools eternal) or fate, destiny, in the sense of determined or fixed. It is also possible ¶ to use ḳaḍāʾ alone for Decree in its broadest sense…

, ʿIzz al-Dīn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. ʿAbd al-Salām b. Abi ’l-Ḳāsim b. al-Ḥasan al-Dimas̲h̲ḳī, Sulṭān al-ʿUlamāʾ, Abū Muḥammad, S̲h̲āfiʿī jurist who was born in Damascus in 577/1181-2 (or 578) and died in Cairo 10 D̲j̲umādā I 660/1 April 1262. The scion of a modest family originally from North Africa (al-Isnawī, Ṭabaḳāt al-s̲h̲āfiʿiyya , Beirut 1987, ii, 84), ʿIzz al-Dīn al-Sulamī “the Damascene” was the leading S̲h̲āfiʿī authority of his generation, the majority of biographers attributing to him the status of mud̲j̲tahid , a distinction not often awarded at t…

Abū muḥammad , the most prominent representative of Imāmī kalām [ q.v.] in the time of the Imāms D̲j̲aʿfar al-Ṣāḍiḳ and Mūsā al-Kāẓim. A client of the tribe of Kinda, he was born and raised in Wāsiṭ, but later lived in Kūfa among the Banū S̲h̲aybān. He is said to have been a D̲j̲ahmī before his conversion to S̲h̲īʿism by the Imām D̲j̲aʿfar al-Ṣādiḳ. Other accounts, however, point to his early association with representatives of dualist religions, notably with Abū S̲h̲ākir al-Dayṣānī. It is certain that after his conversion to S̲h̲īʿīsm he held disputations with Abū S̲h̲ākir and ¶ other duali…

, Abū Manṣūr Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. Maḥmūd al-Samarḳandī , Ḥanafī theologian, jurist, and Ḳurʾān commentator, founder of a doctrinal school which later came to be considered one of the two orthodox Sunnī schools of kalām [see māturīdiyya ]. His nisba refers to Māturīd (or Māturīt), a locality in Samarḳand. On the basis of a misunderstood reference of al-Samʿānī (fol. 498b) to his son-in-law, some late sources consider him of distinguished Medinan descent and call him al-Anṣārī. His main teacher, Abū Naṣr Aḥmad b…

, “account to be rendered to God”. Although the Ḳurʾān sometimes uses ḥisāb in the sense of computation (X, 5 and XVII 12), it is very often used by antonomasia as the “reckoning” which God will require from a man on the Day of Judgement. The expression yawm al-ḥisāb (XL, 27; XXXVIII, 16, 26, 53; cf. XIV, 41), “the Day of the Rendering of Accounts”, is synonymous with yawm al-dīn , “the Day of Judgement”. The eschatological ḥisāb is to be given to God alone (XIII, 40; XXVI, 113); He will require it from all men, but especially from the ungodly (LXXXVIII, 26; XIII, 18 and…

, 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…

, Zaydī kalām theologian from al-Raḳḳa, active in the second ¶ half of the 2nd/8th century. Little is known about his life. He is said to have pledged allegiance to the ʿAlid pretender Yaḥyā b. ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Ḥasan and participated in debates with His̲h̲ām b. al-Ḥakam [ q.v.], Ḍirār b. ʿAmr [ q.v.], and the Ibāḍī ʿAbd Allāh b. Yazīd in the circle of the Barmakid Yaḥyā b. K̲h̲ālid. In legendary reports he is accused of having poisoned the ʿAlid Idrīs b. ʿAbd Allāh in the Mag̲h̲rib at the instigation of the caliph Hārūn al-Ras̲h̲īd or of Yaḥyā b. …

, ʿalāʾ al-dīn , astronomer and mathematician, b. in Samarḳand, d. in Istanbul, on 5 S̲h̲aʿbān 879/19 Dec. 1474. He received his surname from his father, who served as the falconer ( ḳus̲h̲d̲j̲i ) of Ulug̲h̲ Beg. He studied mathematics and astronomy in his native city under the amīr Ulug̲h̲ Beg [ q.v.], who was at the same time an able astronomer, and Ḳaḍī-zāde-i Rūmī, one of the rectors of the celebrated madrasa in Samarḳand which was especially favoured by the amīr. ʿAlī al-Ḳūs̲h̲d̲j̲ī succeeded Ḳāḍī-zāde as director of the renowned observatory of Samarḳand, and took part …

, also called al-Ḥusayniyya , the followers of al-Ḥusayn al-Nad̲j̲d̲j̲ār [ q.v.], an early, specifically Ḥanafī sect of kalām (see W. Madelung, Religious trends in early Islamic Iran , Albany 1988, 29) which flourished during the reign of al-Maʾmūn (198-218/813-33), and whose representatives took part in the controversies throughout the course of the miḥna [ q.v.] or inquisition. But this doctrine, unlike the Muʿtazila, was compelled to ¶ withdraw from Bag̲h̲dād and from the borders of ʿIrāḳ and to move on to the eastern provinces in the wake of the abolition of the miḥna by al-Mutawakk…