(a.), passive participle of form IV verb ṭ-l-ḳ , “to loose the bond ( ḳayd ) of an animal, so as to let it free” (e.g. Muslim, D̲j̲ihād , trad. 46; Abū Dāwūd, D̲j̲ihād, bāb 100). The term is also applied to the loosening of the bowstring (al-Buk̲h̲ārī, D̲j̲ihād, bāb 170), of the garments, the hair, etc. Thence the common meaning absolute, as opposed to restricted ( muḳayyad ), and further the accusative muṭlaḳ an “absolutely”. The use of the term is so widely diffused that a few examples only can be given. In grammar, the term mafʿūl muṭlaḳ denotes the absolute object (…

b. Yūsuf b. Muḥammad b. Ādam al-Bharūčī al-Hindī , Mustaʿlī-Ṭayyibī Ismāʿīlī savant. According to his own statement he was born and brought up in K̲h̲ambhāt (Cambay) in India, and received his early education there. It is not known when and by whom the surname “Bharūčī”, sc. from Bharūč or Broach, [see Bharoč ], was given to him. Urged on by a thirst for knowledge, he states, he renounced family, left his country, travelled to Yaman, and became a student of Ḥasan b. Idrīs, the twentieth dāʿī muṭlaḳ . The books read by him with his teacher in various branches of the ʿulūm al-daʿwa …

, (1) Ibrāhīm b. al-Ḥusayn b. Abi ’l-Suʿūd al-Hamdānī , the second dāʿī muṭlaḳ of the Ṭayyibī Ismāʿīlīs in the Yaman. According to ʿUmāra, not supported by Ṭayyibī sources, the Ṣulayḥid Queen al-Sayyida in 526/1132 appointed him chief dāʿī but then transferred the headship to the Amīr of ʿAdan, Sabaʾ b. Abi ’l-Suʿūd b. Zurayʿ, who supported the claim of the Fāṭimid al-Ḥāfiẓ to the Imāmate. If the report is reliable, Ibrāhīm may have been deposed for his sympathy with the claim of al-Ṭayyib. After the death of the dāʿī al-K̲h̲aṭṭāb b. al-Ḥasan in 533/1138, the first Ṭayyibī dāʿī muṭlaḳ, D̲h̲uʾ…

, ¶ from Ḥārit̲h̲, a well-known tribe and a branch of the Hamdān [ q.v.] confederation, was a prominent figure in the Mustaʿlī-Ṭayyibī Ismāʿīlīs of Yaman. After the death of his teacher ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn b. D̲j̲aʿfar b. Ibrāhīm al-Walīd in 554/1159, he was appointed by Ibrāhīm al-Ḥāmidī [ q.v.], the second dāʿī muṭlaḳ , along with the latter’s son Ḥātim to assist him in the affairs of the daʿwa . On the dāʿī Ibrahim’s death in 557/1161, when Ḥātim b. Ibrāhīm became the next dāʿī muṭlaḳ, he was promoted to the rank of maʾd̲h̲ūn and was stationed in Ṣanʿāʾ as the dāʿī’s deput…

, a branch of the Ismāʿīliyya [ q.v.] with several subdivisions. The Ṭayyibiyya split off from the rest of the Mustaʿlī Ismāʿīlīs soon after the death in 524/1130 of the Fāṭimid caliph al-Āmir bi-Aḥkām Allāh, recognised as the twentieth imām of the Mustaʿlī Ismāʿīlīs. The official Mustaʿlī daʿwa organisation in Cairo recognised al-Āmir’s cousin and successor on the Fāṭimid throne, al-Ḥāfiẓ, and the later Fāṭimids as the rightful imāms . However, some Mustaʿlī groups in Egypt and Syria as well as the majority in Yaman acknowledged the rights …

b. ibrāhīm b. al-walīd al-anf al-ḳuras̲h̲ī , the mentor of ʿAlī b. Ḥātim al-Ḥāmidī [ q.v.], whom he succeeded as the fifth dāʿī muṭlaḳ of the Mustaʿlī-Ṭayyibī Ismāʿīlīs in Yaman in 605/1209, came from a prominent al-Walīd family of Ḳurays̲h̲. His great-grandfather Ibrāhīm b. Abī Salama was a leading chieftain of the founder of the Ṣulayḥid dynasty ʿAlī b. Muḥammad al-Ṣulayḥī, and he was sent by the latter on an official mission to Cairo. He studied first under his uncle ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn and then under Muḥammad b. Ṭāhir al-Ḥārit̲h̲ī. After al-Ḥārit̲h̲ī’s death, Ḥātim b. Ibrāhīm al-Ḥāmidī [ q…

, an Egyptian ṭariḳa founded by ʿAlī b. Ḥid̲j̲āzī b. Muḥammad al-Bayyūmī al-S̲h̲āfīʿī, born c. 1108/1696 and died in Cairo in 1183/1769. After joining the Aḥmadiyya and Ḵh̲alwatiyya (the latter through the Demirdas̲h̲iyya) ṭarīḳas , Bayyūmī, by developing a d̲h̲ikr characterised by particularly loud and emphatic utterance, established a virtually independent ṭarīḳa of his own. Another feature of his ṭarīḳa was its appeal to the poorest classes and specifically to highwaymen, many of whom, after a period of chastisement at Bayyūmī’s hands, swelled the ra…

al-maḥfūzī al-wādiʿī al-hamdānī , succeeded ʿAlī b. Muḥammad b. al-Walīd [ q.v.] as the sixth dāʿī muṭlaḳ of the Mustaʿlī-Ṭayyibī Ismāʿīlīs in Yaman in 612/1215. As the country was passing through a critical period of internal strife after its occupation by the Ayyūbids, the dāʿī pursued a policy of non-interference in politics. He maintained good relations both with the Ayyūbid rulers of Ṣanʿāʾ and the Yāmid sulṭāns of Banū Ḥātim in D̲h̲amarmar which enabled him to carry out his activities without much difficulties. He died on 12 or 22 Rabīʿ I 626/8 or 18 February 1229. Both his compositi…

(adj, can be taken as a subst.), pl. afrād , used of the individual, and so with the meanings of only , solitary , unique , incomparable; the half , that is to say one of a pair or couple (pl. firād , Ḳāmūs root f.r.d); and other derivative meanings. The word has been used to denote Allāh, as the single Being who has no parallel: al-fard fī ṣifāt Allāh (al-Layt̲h̲, Lisān , iv, 327/iii, 331a), but it does not occur in the Ḳurʾān or in ḥadīt̲h̲ s as an epithet of Allāh. It is for that reason that al-Azharī ( ibid.) found fault with this usage. There is every reason for believing’ that al-fard was at that time…

, an eminent Mustaʿlī-Ṭayyibī Ismāʿīlī jurist of India, was the son of the twenty-fifth dāʿī muṭlaḳ . He lived in Aḥmadābād in Gud̲j̲arāt and died there on 13 S̲h̲awwāl 1010/6 April 1602. His works deal mainly with jurisprudence and are considered a great authority on legal matters after the works of al-Ḳāḍī al-Nuʿmān [ q.v.]. The following works have been preserved: 1. Masāʾil Amīnd̲j̲ī b. Ḏj̲alāl , in the form of questions, answers, and anecdotes bearing on legal issues, hence also known as Kitāb al-Suʾāl wa ’l-d̲j̲awāb . The book contains many problems tha…

, Abū ʿAbd Allāh (Abu ’l-Faḍl, Abū Ḏj̲aʿfar) Muḥammad (Aḥmad) b. Abī Yazīd Ṭayfūr al-Sad̲j̲āwandī al-G̲h̲aznawī al-Muḳriʾ al-Mufassir al-Naḥwī al-Lug̲h̲awī, an innovative Ḳurʾān reader and philologist, died 560/1165 (?) He lived and worked in Sad̲j̲/g/kāwand, a small ¶ village half-way to the east of the route from Kābul to G̲h̲aznī in the vicinity of Sayyidābād, dominated by a high-lying citadel, now in ruins, called Tak̲h̲t-i or S̲h̲ār-i (S̲h̲ahr-i) Ḏj̲ams̲h̲īd. On the foot of this mount is placed the mausoleum of Ḵh̲wād̲j̲a Aḥmad (Muḥammad). Here, even today, the S̲h̲ayk…

, Abū Muḥammad, 51st dāʿī al-muṭlaḳ , or absolute dāʿī (addressed as Bāwa Ṣāḥib and Sayyidnā ), vicegerent of the 21st Imām’s (al-Ṭayyib) descendants, and leader of the small, predominantly Gud̲j̲arātī, Ismāʿīlī merchant community of Dāwūdī Bohorās [ q.v.]. He was born in Bombay in 1304/1886, assumed headship of the dawat ( = daʿwa ) from ʿAbd Allāh Badr al-Dīn in 1330/1912, and ruled till his death in Matheran in 1384/1965, when he was succeeded by his son, Muḥammad Burhān al-Dīn (b. 1334/1915). He is buried in the “Rawḍat Ṭāhira” mausoleum built by his son, now a ziyāra site for Bohorās. Thou…

(d. 1005/1597), the grandson of Yūsuf b. Sulaymān, the twenty-fourth dāʿī muṭlaḳ of the Mustaʿlī-Ṭayyibī Ismāʿīlīs, was a deputy of Dāwūd b. ʿAd̲j̲abs̲h̲āh (d. 997/1589), the twenty-sixth dāʿī in Muk̲h̲ā [ q.v.], the famous coffee port and a great trade centre on the Red Sea coast of Yaman. Three years after the succession of Dāwūd b. Ḳuṭbs̲h̲āh as the twenty-seventh ¶ dāʿī Sulaymān claimed the succession for himself. The great majority of the community in India upheld the succession of Dāwūd b. Ḳuṭbs̲h̲ah, whereas a minority, mainly in Yaman, accepted Su…

, a family which has held the spiritual and political leadership of the Banū Yām [ q.v.] and the Sulaymānī Ismāʿīlī community [see ismāʿīliyya ] in Nad̲j̲rān and Yaman since the 11th/17th century. The name evidently refers to the Banū Makram of Hamdān who are settled in Ṭayba in the Wādī Ḍahr and in some other villages to the west of Ṣanʿāʾ There is evidence that the family came from Ṭayba, an old Ismāʿīlī stronghold. A pedigree linking them rather to a Makram b. Sabaʾ b. Ḥimyar al-Aṣg̲h̲ar is fictitious. The term Makārima is often also extended to their followers. The earliest known member of…

, Muʿizz al-Dīn , Mug̲h̲al emperor regnabat 21 Ṣafar 1124/29 March 1712 to 16 Muḥarram 1125/11 February 1713. Born 10 Ramaḍān 1071/10 May 1661, eldest son of Bahādur S̲h̲āh [ q.v.], at the time of his father’s death he was governor of Multān. Pleasure-loving and indolent, he was able to participate actively in the struggle among Bahādur S̲h̲āh’s sons for the throne only through the support of the ambitious D̲h̲u ’l-fiḳār K̲h̲ān, mīr bak̲h̲s̲h̲ī and ṣūbadār of the Deccan who was anxious to exclude ʿAẓīm al-S̲h̲aʾn from the succession and to win the wizāra for himself. After three days fight…

, a historicised mythological tyrant of demonic nature who belonged to the Pīs̲h̲dādiyān dynasty of Persian legendary history. (The form Zuhāk, if it exists at all, must be a mispronunciation of Perso-Arabic Ḍaḥḥāk, itself a re-interpretation of Middle Persian Dahāk, Avestan Az̲h̲ī dahāka-, probably “snakeman”; cf. Vedic azi- “snake”.) According to Iranian tradition, recorded in Middle Persian, Persian and Arabic sources, Ḍaḥḥāk, also called Bīwarasp “possessor of a thousand horses”, and a descendant of early Iranian world-kings, was the son …

, a city and port of western India, on the south bank of the Tāptī and some 16 km/10 miles upstream from where the river debouches into the Gulf of Cambay (lat. 21° 10´ N., long 72° 54´ E.). The geographer Ptolemy (A.D. 150), speaks of the trade of Pulipula, perhaps Phulpāda, the sacred part of Sūrat city. Early references to Sūrat by Muslim historians must be scrutinised, owing to the confusion of the name with Sorath (Saurās̲h̲tra), but in 774/1373 F…

, a heterodox S̲h̲īʿī sect of the later 19th and early 20th centuries in Persia. It is named after a certain Ag̲h̲ā Muḥammad Kāẓim Tunbākū-furūs̲h̲ of Iṣfahān, known as Ṭāwūs al-ʿurafāʾ “Peacock of the (Ṣūfī) initiates” from his elegant dress, who broke away from the Niʿmat-Allāhiyya [ q.v.] Ṣūfī order. On the death of Raḥmat ʿAlī S̲h̲āh S̲h̲īrāzī, who represented the Niʿmat-Allārīs in Iṣfahan, Ṭāwūs refused to recognise his successor there, and, on his expulsion from Iṣfahān in 1281/1864-5, moved to Tehran, dying there in 1293/1876. He was succeeded as ḳuṭb of …

, generally accounted the second king of the Pīs̲h̲dādid dynasty [ q.v.] in legendary Iranian epic history, coming after the first world-king Kayūmart̲h̲ or Gayōmard and the founder of the Pīs̲h̲dādids, Hūs̲h̲ang [ q.v.]. Certain Islamic sources make him the first king of his line, and the length of the reign attributed to him—such figures as an entire millennium or 600 years are given—shows the importance attached to him. His name appears in the Avesta as Tak̲h̲mō urupa azinavε̇a , with the first element tak̲h̲ma , meaning “strong, courageous” (cf. the name Rustam/Rustahm) and urupi . azi…

, a branch of Mustaʿlī-Ṭayyibī Ismāʾīlīs, so called after Sulaymān b. Ḥasan [ q.v.], who claimed the succession for himself after Dāwūd b. ʿAd̲j̲abs̲h̲āh as the twenty-seventh dāʿī muṭlaḳ . They are predominantly to be found in Yaman, where their total number may currently be placed at more than 70,000, living mainly in the northern districts and on the northern border region between Yaman and Saudi Arabia. Besides being represented amongst the Banū Yām of Nad̲j̲rān, the Sulaymānīs are settled in Ḥarāz…

, a Muslim mystic, descendant of the famous ṣūfī ʿAbd al-Ḳādir al-Ḏj̲īlānī, was born in 767/1365 and died about 832/1428. Little is known of his life, as the biographical works do not mention him. According to some of his own statements in al-Insān al-Kāmil , he lived from 796/1393 until 805/1402-3 in Zabīd in Yaman together with his s̲h̲ayk̲h̲ S̲h̲araf al-Dīn Ismāʿīl al-Ḏj̲abartī. In 790/1387 he was in India. He wrote about thirty books and treatises, of which al-Insān al-Kāmil fī Maʿrifat al-Awāk̲h̲ir wa ’l-Awāʾil is the best known (several editions prin…

(rarely, dāʿiya ), “he who summons” to the true faith, was a title used among several dissenting Muslim groups for their chief propagandists. It was evidently used by the early Muʿtazilites [ q.v. in EI 1]; but became typical of the more rebellious among the S̲h̲īʿīs. It appears in the ʿAbbāsid mission in K̲h̲urāsān; and in some Zaydī usage. It was ascribed to followers of Abu ’l-K̲h̲aṭṭāb. It was especially important in the Ismāʿīlī and associated movements (which were called daʿwa , “summons”), where it designated generically the chief authorized representatives of the imām . Among the …

(a.), verbal noun from w-d̲j̲-d “to find”. 1. In philosophy. Here, it is one of the main words used to represent “being” in Arabic renderings of Greek ontological expressions, based on the present passive yūd̲j̲adu , with the past passive wud̲j̲ida , leading to the nominal form mawd̲j̲ūd . Al-mawd̲j̲ūd means “what is found” or “what exists”, and the maṣdar , wud̲j̲ūd , is used as the abstract noun representing existence. Wud̲j̲ūd and its related terms are frequently used to represent the copula ( al-rābiṭa ), sc. the English word “is”, in addition to being …

(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…

signifies etymologically, among other things, the act of loosing, of unfastening, of untying (a knot); of resolving a difficulty, and, with the accusative or with bi or fī , of alighting at a place. Hence its various meanings in the Muslim religious sciences and in falsafa . ¶ (1) In grammar ḥulūl denotes the occurrence of the accident of inflexion ( iʿrāb ); (2) in law it denotes the application of a prescription; (3) in Hellenistic philosophy ( falsafa ) it denotes: (a) the inhesion of an accident in an object ( mawḍūʾ cf. A.-M. Goichon, Lexique de la langue philosophique d’ Ibn Sīnā …

, a Kayanid prince of Persian legendary history and national epic, whose murder by the order of Afrāsiyāb, the arch-king of Tūrān, deepened the deadly feud between Īrān and Tūrān and led eventually to the destruction of Afrāsiyāb and the devastation of his land. Siyāwus̲h̲ is mentioned several times in the Avesta as a holy prince, whose blood was avenged by his illustrious son Kavi Haosrauuah (Pers. Kay K̲h̲usraw [ q.v.]), who slew Afrāsiyāb and destroyed his kin ( Yas̲h̲t s 9.18; 13.132; 19.71, 77). The Bundahis̲h̲n , a major Middle Persian work, contains a …

, ʿabbās maḥmūd , one of the most influential figures in the development of Egyptian culture in the first half of the 20th century, littérateur, journalist, educator, polemicist and critic. Born in Aswān in 1889, he did not complete his secondary education but moved to Cairo at the age of fourteen. While taking a series of minor posts in the civil service, he began to make up for his lack of formal education by reading widely. He was particularly interested in literature, phil…

, “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…

, ḥād̲j̲d̲j̲ī Āḳā ḥusayn ṭabāṭabāʾi (1875-1961), the greatest religious authority ( mard̲j̲aʿ-i taḳlīd-i muṭlaḳ ) of the S̲h̲īʿī world in his time. He belonged to a well-established and wealthy clerical family from which emerged distinguished figures such as Sayyid Mahdī Baḥr al-ʿUlūm (d. 1797). After primary education in his home town, Burūd̲j̲ird, he moved to Iṣfahān in 1892 and studied fiḳh , uṣūl , philosophy and mathematics under several specialists including Sayyid Muḥammad Bāḳir Durčaʾī. In 1902 he went to Nad̲j̲af and attended the lectures of Ḵh̲urāsānī [ q.v.] and others u…

(a.). The two connotations of the root are g̲h̲āba ʿan , to be absent, and g̲h̲āba fī , to be hidden. In current usage, g̲h̲ayb (and especially g̲h̲ayba ) may signify “absence” (and g̲h̲ayba, correlated with s̲h̲uhūd , “presence”, may be a technical term of Ṣūfism); but more frequently g̲h̲ayb may indicate what is hidden, inaccessible to the senses and to reason—thus, at the same time absent from human knowledge and hidden in divine wisdom. It is to this second meaning that al-g̲h̲ayb refers, as a technical term of the religious vocabulary. It may then b…

, Abu ’l- Muḥammad b. Muḥammad al-Ḥusaynī al-As̲h̲raf, Persian poet who died presumably in 556/1161. He spent the greater part of his life in G̲h̲azna as a panegyrist of the G̲h̲aznawid Sulṭān Bahrām S̲h̲āh (512-47/1118-52), to whose campaigns into India he dedicated several ḳaṣīdas . During the latter’s reign he made the Ḥad̲j̲d̲j̲ , in all probability prompted by problems with this mamdūḥ and intended as a search for a new one. Our oldest source on Ḥasan, the Persian polymath Ẓahīr al-Dīn Abu ’l- Ḥasan al-Bayhaḳī [ q.v.], mentions in his (Arabic) Lubāb al-ansāb (…

, legendary ruler of Sīstān [ q.v.] and vassal of the Kayānids, the epic kings of Īrān, was, according to al-T̲h̲aʿālibī and Firdawsī, the son of Narīmān, the father of Zāl-Dastān and the grandfather of Rustam [ q.v.]. This pedigree is the outcome of a long development spanning the entire history of the Iranian epic. In the Avesta, Sāma is the name of a clan to which T̲h̲rīta, “the third man who pressed the Haoma”, belonged as well as his sons Urvāk̲h̲s̲h̲aya and Kərəsāspa (Yasna 9. 10). Kərəsāspa (Persian Kars̲h̲āsp or Gars̲h̲āsp)…

(a.), “concealment”, a term used in a variety of senses particularly by the Ismāʿīliyya [ q.v.] The Ismāʿīlīs originally used it in reference to a period in their early history, called dawr al-satr, stretching from soon after the death of imām D̲j̲aʿfar al-Ṣādiḳ in 148/765 to the establishment of the Fāṭimid state in 297/909. The Ismāʿīlī imām, recognised as the ḳāʾim or mahdī by the majority of the early Ismāʿīlīs, was hidden ( mastūr ) during this period of concealment; in his absence, he was represented by ḥud̲j̲d̲j̲a s (see D̲j̲aʿfar b. Manṣūr al-Yaman, Kitāb al-Kas̲h̲f …

(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 …

, sigla and conventional signs are nowadays called in Arabic muk̲h̲taṣarāt “abridgements” or rumūz “symbols”, but there does not seem to have been any specific term for them in the classical period, even though from the very beginnings of Islam copyists, scribes and specialists in all sorts of disciplines were led to use them. This is why it has been thought suitable to bring together here a list of the main abbreviations found in the mediaeval texts, together with some examples of those taken up by our contemporaries. One should first of all recall that a certain number of the sur…

(a.), refers in Arabic metrics to the optional reduction of a long to a short syllable (CVC → CV; or CV̄ → CV) or of two short syllables to one (CVCV → CVC; CVCV → CV̄; or CVCV → CV). ¶ The alternation between two short syllables in one line and one syllable in another occurs in wāfir , kāmil and mutadārik ; in the other metres the choice is between one long and one short syllable. Per line of verse, there usually are between four to six anceps positions that allow ziḥāf reductions. In indigenous Arabic metrical theory or ʿarūḍ [ q.v.], ziḥāf is presented as a deviation from the standard foot or d̲j̲uzʾ …

, a major branch of the S̲h̲īʿa with numerous subdivisions. It branched off from the Imāmiyya [see it̲h̲nā ʿas̲h̲ariyya ] by tracing the imāmate through Imām D̲j̲aʿfar al-Ṣādiḳ’s son Ismāʿīl, after whom it is named. History: Pre-Fāṭimid and Fāṭimid times. After the death of D̲j̲aʿfar al-Ṣādiḳ in 148/765 a group of his followers held fast to the imāmate of his son Ismāʿīl, who had been named by him as his successor but had predeceased him. Some of them maintained that Ismāʿīl had not died and would reappear a…

(a.), lit. “those who go back to first principles”, from uṣūl , sing, aṣl “root, basic principle” or, considered as a modern abstract noun formation, “the doctrine of going back to first principles”. 1. In the legal parlance of classical Islam More specifically, the term uṣūliyya is applied within the Twelver S̲h̲īʿī tradition [see it̲h̲nā ʿas̲h̲ariyya ] to those of its adherents commonly identified as supporting application of the rationalist principles of jurisprudence—especially id̲j̲tihād [ q.v.] to the revelation accepted by the Twelvers to interpret doctrine and …

(a.), a mistake, which is made in thought, speech or action (a fault which one has is called ʿayb ), the opposite of ṣawāb , what is correct; hence in the field of knowledge, error; in that of action, omission, failure, all this, of course, unintentional. From the last meaning develops that of wrong which one commits, transgression; whether this is to be regarded as unintentional or—as in k̲h̲aṭīʾa and k̲h̲iṭʾ —deliberate (sc. a sin) is a disputed point with the lexicographers. K̲h̲aṭāʾ and k̲h̲aṭʾ (the latter is found only in the Ḳāmūs , so that it is hardly class…

, abu ’l-fatḥ ḏj̲alāl al-dīn muḥammad (15 Oct. 1542-16 Oct. 1605), the greatest of the Mug̲h̲al emperors of India, was born at Umarkot in Sind while his father Humāyūn, who had been ousted by the Afg̲h̲ān usurper S̲h̲īr S̲h̲āh Sūr, was escaping to Persia. A grandson of Bābur, he was both a Tīmūrid Turk and a Čag̲h̲atāy Mongol. His mother, Ḥamīda Bānū, was a Persian. After thirteen years of exile Humāyūn, because of the decline of Sūr power, decided to attempt the reconquest of H…

(a.), from the verb ḳallada “to imitate, follow, obey s.o.”, meaning acceptance of or submission to authority. The word, with this semantic range, is not found in the Ḳurʾān nor in ḥadīt̲h̲ literature (as covered by Wensinck’s Concordance ). It has an important role throughout the Muslim religious sciences where it has a predominantly negative meaning, implying unreasonable and thoughtless acceptance of authority. It was, however, capable of being rescued and given a positive orientation. Different degrees of p…

(I) (a.), a verbal noun meaning originally “making a thing apparent or manifest”, with the implication that the beholder may take it or leave it, and then “making a thing allowable or free to him who desires it”; it has become a technical term with several connected meanings in the religious law of Islam; istibāḥa , taking a thing as allowed, free, or lawful; mubāḥ (the contrary of maḥẓūr ), “indifferent”, i.e., neither obligatory or recommended, nor forbidden or reprehensible; it is to be distinguished from its near synonym d̲j̲āʾiz , “unobjectionable, valid, permitted”; the concept ḥalāl…

, the principal hero of the Iranian epic, especially in the version of Firdawsī [ q.v.]. 1. In Iranian legend. Neither his name nor that of his father Zāl occur in the Avesta. In the Yas̲h̲t s, Kərəsāspa (in Persian, Kars̲h̲āsp or Gars̲h̲āsp) is the most important heroic figure. Marquait conjectured that originally “Rustam” was no more than an epithet of Kərəsāspa, which only by chance was not attested in the extant Avestan texts. The exploits later attributed to Rustam would be the result of a blend of the l…

(a.), body. In philosophical language the body (σῶμα) is distinguished from the incorporeal (ἀσώματον), God, spirit, soul, etc. In so far as speculation among the Muslims was influenced by Neo-Platonism two features were emphasized: I. The incorporeal is in its nature simple and indivisible, the body on the other hand is composite and divisible; 2. the incorporeal is in spite of its negative character the original, the causing principle, while the body is a product of the incorporeal. ¶ The more or less naive anthropomorphism of early Islam, i.e., the conception of God after the an…

(Bohrās, Buhrah), a Muslim community in Western India (mainly of Hindu descent, with some admixture of Yemenite Arab blood), for the most part S̲h̲īʿīs of the Ismāʿīlī sect, and belonging to that branch of the S̲h̲īʿa which upholds the claims of al-Mustaʿlī (487-495/1094-1101) to succeed his father al-Mustanṣir in the Fāṭimid Caliphate of Egypt. (For the historj of the Fāṭimids, see the articles fāṭimids and ismāʿīlīs ). Mustaʿlī opposed his brother Nizār, whose adherents (the so-called Assassins) are represented in India by the Ḵh̲ōd̲j̲as [ q.v.]. The name bohorā …

(t.) (commonly ṣadr aʿẓam ), strictly “the greatest of the high dignitaries”, that is, the Grand Vizier, a title which, in the Ottoman Empire, was used synonymously with wezīr-i aʿẓam from the mid-10th/16th century; its first use in this sense occurs in the Āṣāf-nāme of Lütfī Pas̲h̲a [ q.v.], himself a holder of the office 946-8/1539-41. Earlier, in the late 8th/14th century, ṣadr had been used to refer to the highest official ʿulemāʾ , the ḳāḍī ʿasker s [ q.v.], who were promoted to serve as viziers. Later, because the vizier came to operate as military commander in the a…

, Sayyid Rūḥ Allāh Mūsawī (1902-89), Āyatullāh [ q.v. in Suppl.] and prominent Iranian religious leader of the later 20th century. He was born into a clerical family in the small town of K̲h̲umayn [ q.v. in Suppl.] in central Iran, a few years before the Constitutional Revolution of 1906-11 [see dustūr. iv] opened the era of modern politics in Iran. Sayyid Rūḥ Allāh’s father was murdered before he was a year old, and his mother died when he was in his teens. The reign of Riḍā S̲h̲āh (1925-41 [ q.v.]), whose secularisation policies and dispossession of clerics he never forgot nor forg…

(A.), literally “exerting oneself, is the technical term in Islamic law, first, for the use of individual reasoning in general and later, in a restricted meaning, for the use of the method of reasoning by analogy ( ḳiyās [ q.v.]). The lawyer who is qualified to use it is called mud̲j̲tahid . Individual reasoning, both in its arbitrary and its systematically disciplined form, was freely used by the ancient schools of law, and it is often simply called raʾy [ q.v.], “opinion, considered opinion”. An older, narrower technical meaning of the term id̲j̲tihād , which has…

, Ḥamīd al-Dīn Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh , was a prominent dāʿī of the Fāṭimids during the reign of al-Ḥākim bi-amr Allāh (386-411/996-1021) as well as the author of many works on the theory of the Imāmate and on Ismāʿīlī philosophy. The life of al-Kirmānī is known only in its main outlines, which can be traced on the basis of statements contained in his own works. Some other details can be derived from unpublished Ismāʿīlī sources, as has been done notably by Muṣṭafā G̲h̲ālib ( op. cit., 41 f.) who, however, does not specify these sources. His nisba points to his origin fro…

b. ʿAbd allāh al-Kūfī al-Ṣūfī , one of the principal representatives of earlier Arabic alchemy. The genealogy quoted above is taken from the Fihrist, where on p. 354 the oldest biography of D̲j̲ābir is preserved. His kunya given there is not Abū Mūsā, as usual, but Abū ʿAbd Allāh, although Ibn al-Nadīm himself states that al-Rāzī (d. 313/925 or 323/935) used to quote: “Our master Abū Mūsā D̲j̲ābir b. Ḥayyān says . . .”. The biography shows not only complete uncertainty regarding facts, but also legendary ele…

(a.), legal principles, legal maxims, general legal rules (sing. ḳāʿida fiḳhiyya ). These are mad̲h̲hab internal legal guidelines that are applicable to a number of particular cases in various fields of the law, whereby the legal determinations ( aḥkām ) of these cases can be derived from these principles. They reflect the logic of a school’s legal reasoning and thus impart a “scaffolding” to the “case-law” ( furūʿ ). Historically, general rules can be found already strewn throughout early furūʿ works. They were first collected by Ḥanafīs like Abu ’l-Ḥasan al-Kark̲h̲ī (d. …

(a.) denotes, in contemporary usage, one who possesses the aptitude to form ¶ his own judgement on questions concerning the s̲h̲arīʿa , using personal effort ( id̲j̲tihād [ q.v.]) in the interpretation of the fundamental principles ( uṣūl [ q.v.]) of the s̲h̲arīʿa. The prerogatives of mud̲j̲tahid s are thus essentially linked to the diverse connotations of the term id̲j̲tihād which have varied in the course of time and according to schools. Its application to the field of jurisprudence is in fact a narrowing of the concept, the terms id̲j̲tahada / id̲j̲tihād sign…

, originally two methods of transforming equations, later the name given to the theory of equations (algebra). The oldest Arabic work on algebra, composed ca. 850 A.D. by Muḥ. b. Mūsā al-K̲h̲wārizmī [ q.v.], consistently uses these methods for reducing certain problems to canonical forms; al-K̲h̲wārizmī’s work was edited with English translation by F. Rosen, London 1831. A revision of Rosen’s text is badly needed, cf. S. Gandz, The Mishnat ha Middot , in Quellen u. Stud. z. Gesch. d. Math. , Abt. A: Quellen, 2, 1932, 61 ff.; the translation is arbitrary and often wrong, not the…

, the name of the “caste-cluster of agriculturalists-turned-warriors” inhabiting the north-west Dakhan, Mahārās̲h̲tra “the great country”, a term which is extended to all Marāt́hīspeakers. The Marāt́hā homeland stretched between 15° N. and 23° N., nearly equidimensional with the main mass of the Dakhan lavas north of the Malaprabha river and south of the Sātpūras. It lies within the rain-shadow of the Western Ghāts, a plateau compartmented by mesas and buttes between ¶ which valleys of black soil, watered by a 20” to 30” annual rainfall, yielded cereals, oilseeds a…

, a technical term taken from the Greek ὕλη, “matter” as opposed to “form”, ṣūra (εἶδος), or more precisely “primary matter” in the philosophical sense. The corresponding Arabic word is mādda ; the sense that is sometimes very close to that of ʿunṣur , “element”, should also be noted. In the 3rd/9th and 4th/10th centuries, the term hayūlā ¶ is current in translations from the Greek, and in the researches and systems that draw their inspiration from these. According to the taste of the various schools and authors, hayūlā is sometimes substituted for mādda, and sometimes distinguished fro…

( Ghāzī ) ( Abdülhamid ), 36th Ottoman sultan, fifth child of thirty of ʿAbd al-Mad̲j̲īd (Abdülmecid) [ q.v.], born Wednesday, 21 September 1842. He is traditionally represented as a reserved child, easily offended, and, in spite of his keen intelligence, not given to study. It is said that, after a stormy youth, he led a thrifty family life, which earned him the undeserved nickname ‘Pinti Ḥamīd’, Ḥamīd the Skinflint, taken from a comedy by Kaṣṣab. He early showed a great liking for the company of devout persons (Pertewniyāl, a distortion of Pertew-nihāl, wālde sulṭān …

, pl. of faylasūf , formed from the Greek φιλόσοφος. By its origin this word primarily denotes the Greek thinkers. Al-S̲h̲ahrastānī gives a list of them: the seven Sages who are “the fount of philosophy ( falsafa ) and the beginning of wisdom ( ḥikma ) ” , then Thales, Anaxagoras, Anaximenes, Empedocles, Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Plutarch, Xenophanes, Zeno the elder, Democritus, the philosophers of the Academy, Heraclitus, Epicurus, Homer (the poet whose wisdom inspired Greece for, with the Greeks, poetry preceded ph…

, Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn K̲h̲alīl b. Aybak , Abu ’l-Ṣafāʾ al-Albakī (696-764/1297-1363), philologist, literary critic and littérateur, biographer, and all-round humanist. Ṣafad was his family’s home, and he was born there. His father, al-Amīr ʿIzz al-Dīn Aybak (b. ʿAbd Allāh!) was of Turkic origin; the nisba al-Albakī, after some mamlūk amīr named Albakī, seems to have belonged to him. From the apparent absence of any mention of him by his son, we may conclude that al-Ṣafadī considered him undistinguished. Relations with his father…

(pl. marād̲j̲iʿ-i taḳlid , Pers. for Ar. mard̲j̲aʿ/marād̲j̲iʿ al-taḳlīd ), title and function of a hierarchal nature denoting a Twelver Imām S̲h̲īʿī jurisconsult ( muad̲j̲tahid , faḳīh ) who is to be considered during his lifetime, by virtue of his qualities and his wisdom, a model for reference, for “imitation” or “emulation”—a term employed to an increasing extent by English-speaking authors—by every observant Imāmī S̲h̲īʿī (with the exception of mud̲j̲tahids ) on all aspects of religious practice and law. As in the case of other institutions, the history of this function (called mar…

(a.), the action of raising oneself, of rising, and of resurrection. The root ḳ-w-m is employed very frequently in the language of the Ḳurʾān. Ḳiyāma occurs there seventy times, always in the expression yawm al-ḳiyāma “the day of resurrection”. The resurrection of bodies follows the annihilation of all creatures ( al-fanāʾ al-muṭlaḳ ), and precedes the “judgment” ( dīn ), the “day of judgement” ( yawm al-dīn ).This will be the Last Hour ( al-sāʿa ). Al-sāʿa , yawm al-ḳiyāma and yawm al-dīn, taken as a whole constitute one of the “necessary beliefs” which determine the content…

, Abu ’l-Faḍl ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Abī Bakr b. Muḥammad D̲j̲alāl al-Dīn al-K̲h̲uḍayrī, famous Egyptian scholar, at present recognised ¶ as the most prolific author in the whole of Islamic literature. 1. Life. Through his father, al-Suyūṭī was of Persian origin. He himself states that his ancestors lived at al-K̲h̲uḍayriyya, one of the quarters of Bag̲h̲dād (hence his second nisbd ). In the Mamlūk period his family settled in Asyūṭ [ q.v.], where its members were engaged in important religious and administrative duties. Al-Suyūṭī was born on 1 Rad̲j̲ab 849/3 October 14…

(a.), plur. ḳawāfin , term in prosody, meaning “rhyme”. Goldziher ( Abh . zur Arabischen Philologie , Leiden 1896, i, 83-105; cf. R. Blachère, Deuxième contribution, in Arabica vi (1959), 141) has shown that the word meant originally “lampoon”, then “line of poetry”, “poem” and, that these earlier senses survived in Islamic times after the word had also come to be used in the technical sense of “rhyme”. He derives ḳāfiya from ḳafan , “nape of the neck” (and the corresponding verb ḳafā , “to hit the nape of the neck”) and draws attention to passages in whi…

(a.) means literally “an instrument of piping”. In the generic sense, it refers to any instrument of the “wood-wind” family, i.e. a reed-pipe or a flute. In the specific sense, it refers to a reed-pipe (i.e. a pipe played with a reed) as distinct from a flute, as we know from Ibn Sīnā (d. 428/1037) who describes the mizmār —a reed pipe—as an instrument “which you blow into from its end which you swallow”, as distinct from an instrument like the yarāʿ —a flute—”which you blow into from a hole”. Ibn Zayla (d. 439/1048) writes similarly, but substitutes the Persian word nāy for the Arabic word mizmār. …

(a.) ( muwas̲h̲s̲h̲aḥ or muwas̲h̲s̲h̲aḥa , pl. muwas̲h̲s̲h̲aḥat ). name of a certain genre of stanzaic poetry, which according to indigenous tradition developed in al-Andalus towards the end of the 3rd/9th century. It is reckoned among the seven post-classical genres of poetry in Arabic [see kān wa-kān ]. Structure. The muwas̲h̲s̲h̲aḥ has a particular rhyme scheme and a special final part ( k̲h̲ard̲j̲a ). The main body of the poem is always composed in Classical Arabic, while the language of the final part is mostly non-Classical (vern…

(a.), a technical term for a rhetorical figure (alternative names, all from the same root, are d̲j̲inās [very common], mud̲j̲ānasa , mud̲j̲ānas , and tad̲j̲ānus ), variously translated as paronomasia, pun, homonymy, and alliteration. The last two terms, however, do not cover all the types that have traditionally been subsumed under this heading, while “pun” has also been used to render tawriya [ q.v.], the difference being that tawriya is a one-term pun ( double entendre). A general definition of tad̲j̲nīs would be: a pair of utterances (mostly, but no…

(a.), a technical term denoting logic. 1. Etymology. The LA gives manṭiḳ as a synonym of kalām in the sense of “language”; a book is described as being nāṭiḳ bayyin as if it does itself speak; God says in the Ḳurʾān (XXII, 62): “And before Us is a Book which tells the truth ( yanṭiḳu bi ’l-ḥaḳḳ )”. This telling of the truth also has a quality of judgment; thus (XLV, 29): “This is Our Book; it pronounces against you in all truth ( yanṭiḳu ʿalaykum bi ’l-ḥaḳḳ )” Metaphorically, manṭiḳ expresses the language of all things, for example the language of birds (Ḳurʾān, XXVII, 16: manṭiḳ al-ṭayr …

, a state of East Africa bounded on the east by the Indian Ocean, on the north by Ethiopia and the Sudan, and in the south by Tanzania. It was formerly a colony of the British Empire, but became independent in December 1963. The Muslim population in the country formed about 6% of a total figure of 8,636,263 in 1962. Assuming that the number increased annually by the present rate of 3.4%, the Muslim population would number some 800,000 out of a total population of 10,942,705 in 1974. The Muslims …

, son of Riḍā K̲h̲ān [ q.v.] and Tād̲j̲ al-Mulūk, daughter of Tīmūr K̲h̲ān mīr-pand̲j̲ (“brigadier”); born 26 October 1919 (his twin sister, As̲h̲raf, was born later the same day), died Cairo 27 July 1980, second and last s̲h̲āh of the Pahlawī [ q.v.] ¶ dynasty of Iran. At the coronation of his father on 25 April 1926, Muḥammad Riḍā was formally invested as Crown Prince. After primary education at a school established by his father for the sons of government officials and military officers, he was sent in 1931 to a private school in Lausa…

, Muḥyi ’l-Dīn Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. ʿAlī b. Muḥammad b. al-ʿArabī al-Ḥātimī al-Ṭāʾī , known as al-S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ al-Akbar (560/1165-638/1240), was one of the greatest Ṣūfīs of Islam. He is usually referred to—incorrectly—as Ibn ʿArabī, without the article, to distinguish him from Ibn al-ʿArabī, Abū Bakr [ q.v.]; in Turkey he is often referred to as “Muḥyi ’l-Dīn ʿArabī”; whereas some sources ( e.g., al-Kutubī, Fawāt al-wafayāt , Cairo 1951, ii, 487) give his kunya as Abū Bakr, in autograph notes he refers to himself only as Abū ʿAbd Allāh. Life. He was born at …

(a.), time. 1. In philosophy Time, for those who recognised the authority of the Greeks, sc. the falāsifa [ q.v.], had numerous meanings: it denoted the near millennium and a half that separated them from the “first master”, and it signified that of which Aristotle (Arisṭūṭālīs [ q.v.]) had propounded the theory in the 4th and 8th books of the Physics , a work which, ancient though it was, seemed to them as if written only yesterday; see al-Ṭabīʿa , ed. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Badawī, Cairo 1964-65, 2 vols., tr. of the Physics by Isḥāḳ b. Ḥunayn [ q.v.], accompanied by commentaries of Abū ʿAlī b. Sa…

“cause”, pl. ʿilal . i.—Grammar The idea of the ʿilla is important, and appears in the earliest treatises. In fact, Ibn Sallām al-Ḏj̲umāḥī. who sees ʿAbd Allāh b. Abī Isḥāḳ (d. 117/735) as the founder of naḥw , says of him: “he enlarged the scope of ḳiyās and explained the ʿilal” (al-Ḳifṭī, ¶ Inbāʾ , ii, 105). Few grammarians, however, have dealt with the question of ʿilal for its own sake: al-Zad̲j̲d̲j̲ād̲j̲ī, in ch. 5 (64-6) of the Kitāb al-Īāḍāḥ fī ʿilal al-naḥw (Cairo 1378/1959); Ibn Ḏj̲innī. in several chapters of the K̲h̲aṣāʾiṣ . i (Cairo 1371/1952), 48-95, 1…

al-Ṭāʾī al-Sinbisī, Abu ’l-Maḥāsin (b. 5 Rabīʿ II 677/26 August 1278 [according to al-Ṣafadī, Wāfī , xviii, 482, 6-7, and most other sources] ¶ or D̲j̲umādā II, 678/Oct.-Nov. 1279 [according to al-Birzālī (d. 739/1339; q.v.) who claims to have received this information from al-Ḥillī himself, see Ḥuwwar, 20], d. probably 749/1348), the most famous Arab poet of the 8th century A.H. In spite of his fame, information about his life is rather scarce; even the year of his death is variously given (see Bosworth, Underworld , i, 138, n. 26). Born in al-Ḥilla [ q.v.], a centre of S̲h̲īʿī learning…

, music. 1. Theory. Mūsīḳī denotes, strictly speaking, the theory of music, and contrasts therefore with g̲h̲ināʾ , song (i.e., musical practice). But the distinction is not rigidly maintained —the Ik̲h̲wān al-Ṣāfāʾ even equate the two— and the term mūsīḳī is not associated particularly with the works of Greek-inspired theorists, even though its Greek origin is normally acknowledged. It is typically defined as the science of the composition of melodies ( taʾlīf al-alḥān ), but the use of e.g. mūsīḳār/ī to denote the performer clearly shows the tendenc…

(a.) means basically "wood, piece of wood, plank, spar" (pls. aʿwād , ʿīdān ). I. In daily life 1. ʿŪd as perfume and incense and as a medicament In the Arabic materia medica it indicates the so-called "aloe wood". This designation, used in trade, is conventional but incorrect because aloe wood is called ṣabr [ q.v.]. ʿŪd has to do with certain kinds of resinous, dark-coloured woods with a high specific weight and a strong aromatic scent, which were used in medicine as perfume and incense ( ʿūd al-bak̲h̲ūr ) and were highly coveted because of their rarity and v…

, the name of two Ottoman sultans. 1. Maḥmūd I (1143-68/1730-54), (with the title of G̲h̲āzī and the literary nom-de-plume of Sabḳatī). The eldest son of Sultan Muṣṭafā II, he was born on the night of 3 Muḥarram 1108/2 August 1696 in the Palace at Edirne. His mother was Wālide Ṣāliḥa Sulṭān. He undertook his first studies on Wednesday, 20 D̲h̲u ’l-Ḥid̲j̲d̲j̲a 1113/18 May 1702 with a grand ceremony at the Edirne Palace which his father Muṣṭafā II attended in person, and was given his first lesson by the S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ al-Islām Sayyid Fayḍ Allāh …

, Abu ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Sīnā , known in the West as Avicenna . He followed the encyclopaedic conception of the sciences that had been traditional since the time of the Greek Sages in uniting philosophy with the study of nature and in seeing the perfection of man as lying in both knowledge and action. He was also as illustrious a physician as he was a philosopher [see Ḥikma ]. Life. His life is known to us from authoritative sources. An autobiography covers his first thirty years, and the rest are documented by his disciple al-D̲j̲uzad̲j̲ānī, who was also his secretary and his friend. He…

(a.), the obligatory payment by Muslims of a determinate portion of specified ¶ categories of their lawful property for the benefit of the poor and other enumerated classes or, as generally in Ḳurʾānic usage, the portion of property so paid. 1. Introduction. There is disagreement as to when the obligation of zakāt was imposed: according to a common opinion, this occurred in the month of S̲h̲awwāl of the year 2/624 after the introduction of zakāt al-fiṭr in S̲h̲aʿbān of the same year, or, according to others, at the same time as zakāt al-fiṭr. Others place its intr…

, a term used to denote (a) the doctrine and (b) the followers of Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb (1115-1206/1703-92 [see ibn ʿabd al-wahhāb ]). The term is derived from Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb’s father’s name “ʿAbd al-Wahhāb” and was originally used by Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb’s opponents to denounce his doctrine as mere personal opinion. Probably the first appearance the term made is in the title of the K. al-Ṣawāʿiḳ al-ilāhiyya fi ’l-radd ʿalā ’l-Wahhābiyya (first ed. Bombay 1306/1888-9) of Sulaymān b. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb (d. 1208/1793-4) who up to…

, in Islamic science an astronomical handbook with tables, after the models of the Sāsānid Persian Zīk -i S̲h̲ahriyār , the Indian Sindhind [ q.v.], and Ptolemy’s Almagest and Handy Tables [see baṭlamiyūs ]. A typical zīd̲j̲ might contain a hundred folios of text and tables, though some are substantially larger than this. Most of the relevant astronomical and astrological concepts are clearly explained in the Tafhīm of al-Bīrūnī [ q.v.]. The history of Islamic zīd̲j̲s constitutes a major part of the history of Islamic astronomy [see ʿilm al-hayʾa ]. i. Etymology Arabic zīd̲j̲ (pl. zīd̲j̲ā…

(a.), vizier or chief minister. I. In the Arab World 1. The ʿAbbāsids. Etymology The term wazīr occurs in the Ḳurʾān (XXV, 35: “We gave Moses the book and made his brother Aaron a wazīr with him”), where it has the sense of “helper”, a meaning well attested in early Islamic poetry (for examples, see Goitein, The origin of the vizierate, 170-1). Though several scholars have proposed Persian origins for the term and for the institution, there is no compelling reason to doubt the Arabic provenance of the term or an Arab-Islamic origin and evolution of the institution of the wazīr (cf. Goitein, op. ci…

(a.), the phenomenon of mysticism within Islam. It is the maṣdar of Form V of the radical ṣ-w-f indicating in the first place one who wears woollen clothes ( ṣūf ), the rough garb of ascetics and mystics. Other etymological derivations which have been put forward in Western and, especially, Islamic sources, are untenable. Hence a mystic is called ṣūfī or mutaṣawwif , colls, ṣūfiyya or mutaṣawwifa . 1. Early development in the Arabic and Persian lands. Already among the Companions of the Prophet Muḥammad there were persons who wanted more than just to strive after the out…

, a dynasty which ruled in Persia as “sovereigns 907-1135/1501-1722, as fainéants 1142-8/1729-36, and thereafter, existed as pretenders to the throne up to 1186/1773. I. Dynastic, political and military history. The establishment of the Ṣafawid state in 907/1501 by S̲h̲āh Ismāʿīl I [ q.v.] (initially ruler of Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān only) marks an important turning-point in Persian history. In the first place, the Ṣafawids restored Persian sovereignty over the whole of the area traditionally regarded as the heartlands of Persia for the first ti…

(a.), a noun of place from the verb d̲j̲alasa “to sit down” and, by extension, “to sit”, ¶ “to hold a session”; starting from the original meaning of “a place where one sits down, where one stays”, thence “a seat” (J. Sadan, Le mobilier au Proche-Orient médiéval , Leiden 1976, index), the semantic field of mad̲j̲lis is of very wide extent (see the dictionaries of Lane, Dozy, Blachère, etc.). Among the principal derivative meanings are “a meeting place”, “meeting, assembly” (cf. Ḳurʾān, LXVIII, 12/11), “a reception hall (of a ca…