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(Banū) or Midrārids , minor Berber dynasty which was established in Sid̲j̲ilmās(s)a [ q.v.] and which enjoyed relative independence until its final collapse in 366/976-7. The history of this dynasty can be briefly outlined, thanks to al-Bakrī [ q.v.], who lived in the 5th/11th century and thus possessed quite recent information in order to write the chapter that he devotes to it ( Mug̲h̲rib , 148 ff., Fr. tr. 282 ff.), before Ibn ʿId̲h̲ārī (7th-8th/13th-14th century [ q.v.]), Ibn Ḵh̲aldūn (8th/14th century [ q.v.]) and several historians of the Mag̲h̲rib and Mas̲h̲riḳ were abl…

, nickname of the Arab poet D̲j̲arwal b. Aws , who traced back his genealogy sometimes to the ʿAbs, sometimes to the D̲h̲uhl, but who, in reality, was probably the natural son of a woman named al-Ḍarrāʾ; his nickname probably derives from his ugliness and appears to signify “deformed”. He belonged to the muk̲h̲aḍramūn [ q.v.], and Ibn Sallām places him in the second class of the poets of the d̲j̲āhiliyya since he is regarded as the rāwī of Zuhayr b. Abī Sulmā [ q.v.], he must have been born about forty years before the hid̲j̲ra , and his earliest poetic activities pro…

, muḥammad b. abi ’l-k̲h̲aṭṭāb , adīb of the end of the 3rd/9th or of the beginning of the 4th/10th century, and known only as the author of the Ḏj̲amharat ashʿār al-ʿArab (ed. Būlāḳ 1308/1890). No personal details about the author can be derived from this collection, and the only relevant data are two isnād s, one (p. 13) going back to al-Hayt̲h̲am b. ʿAdī (d. ca. 206/821 [ q.v.]) through two intermediaries, and the other (p. 14) going back to Ibn al-Aʿrābī (d. 231/846 [ q.v.]) through one intermediary; these isnāds would thus allow us to date the Ḏj̲amhara approximatel…

, Ḏj̲uwayra , Ḏj̲uwayriyya or Ḥārit̲h̲a b. al-Ḥad̲j̲d̲j̲ād̲j̲ (or again Ḥanẓala b. al-S̲h̲arḳī , which was more probably, however, the name of Abu ’l-Ṭamaḥān al-Ḳayni, see S̲h̲iʿr , 229), pre-Islamic poet of al-Ḥīra, contemporary of al-Mund̲h̲ir b. Māʾ al-Samāʾ (about 506-554 A.D.), who put him in the charge of his horses. The expression d̲j̲ārun ka-d̲j̲ārl Abī Duʾād , which appears in a line of Ḳays b. Zuhayr and has become proverbial, gave rise to several traditions showing Abū Duʾād as the “protégé” of a noble and generous d̲j̲ār, who is either al-Mund̲h̲ir, al-Ḥarit̲h̲ b. Ḥamm…

(also called Yuʿfur and Yaʿfir) b. ʿAbd al-Aswad al-Tamīmī, Abu ’l-Ḏj̲arrāḥ, pre-Islamic Arab poet who lived probably at the end of the 6th century A.D. He is said to have travelled about among the tribes, composing eulogies or satires in verse, and was for some time the companion of al-Nuʿmān b. al-Mund̲h̲ir. He is sometimes called al-Aʿs̲h̲ā of the Banū Nahs̲h̲al, because he was night-blind, but he lost his sight at the end of his life, which is thought to have been extremely long. Of the poems which have come down to us, the most celebrated are a ḳaṣīda in dāl dating p…

is the usual appellative of the great-grandson of the Caliph Abū Bakr, ʿAbd Allāh b. Muḥammad (= Abū ʿAtīk) b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Abī Bakr . All that is known of him is that, after al-Ḥasan and al-Ḥusayn, he married, among others, Umm Isḥāḳ, the daughter of Ṭalḥa b. ʿUbayd Allāh. He led an idle existence in Medina, dividing his time between meetings with poets such as ʿUmar b. Abī Rabīʿa [ q.v.] or Kut̲h̲ayyir ʿAzza [ q.v.] and seeking the company of wits such as As̲h̲ʿab [ q.v.] or musicians and singers like Ibn ʿĀʾis̲h̲a [ q.v.]. Being a member of the Ḳurays̲h̲ī aristocracy, he was able in…

(a.) “routes and kingdoms”, name given by R. Blachère ( Extraits des principaux géographes arabes du Moyen Age , Beirut-Algiers 1934, 110-200; 2nd corrected printing by H. Darmaun, Paris 1957) to what he considered as a particular genre of Arabic geographical literature, because several works, which bear the title of Kitāb al-Masālik wa “ l-mamālik , present common characteristics. Nevertheless, not all those which, in his eyes, constitute this genre were given the title which has been retained, and furthermore, the K. al-Masālik wa ’l-mamālik which is per…

b. ʿAbd al-Malik , Umayyad prince. As the eldest son of His̲h̲ām [ q. v.], caliph from 105 to 125/724-43, he was designated heir presumptive by his father, but died prematurely, at a date variously located between 117 and 119/735-7, at about thirty years of age. Although he did not himself accede to the throne, he was the father of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān [ q.v.], known as al-Dāk̲h̲il. who fled to Spain where he restored the dynasty founded in Damascus by Muʿāwiya b. Abī Sufyān [ q.v.]. Muʿāwiya b. His̲h̲ām, who had thirteen sons, was thus the ancestor of the amīrs and caliphs wh…

, a famous singer of Medina at the time of the first Umayyads. Tradition has it that she taught herself the elements of music and singing by listening to her neighbour Sāʾib K̲h̲āt̲h̲ir [ q.v.] (d. 63/682-3). It became unanimously recognized that her great natural talent put her in a class of her own, and she founded a school where, among numerous lesser-known singers and ḳiyān , Maʿbad [ q.v.], Ibn ʿĀʾis̲h̲a [ q.v.], Ḥabāba and Sallāma received their training. Artists as great as Ibn Surayd̲j̲ [ q.v.] would come to hear her, and would accept her critical judgments, while her salo…

al-Salūlī , Arab poet of the 1st/7th century (he is said to have died after 96/715), who played a political role under the Umayyads. He was attached from 60/680 to Yazīd b. Muʿāwiya, condoled with him upon the death of his father and congratulated him at his accession. He persuaded Yazīd to proclaim his son Muʿāwiya as heir presumptive and later he was the first to greet al-Walīd b. ʿAbd al-Malik with the name of caliph (86/705). During the reign of ʿAbd al-Malik (65-86/685-…

(a.), a word probably of Berber origin meaning couscous, a culinary preparation containing semolina which is the national dish of the peoples of North Africa. It appears with the article and with a final nūn in an anecdote depicting an Oriental being advised by the Prophet, in a dream, to treat with al-kuskusūn a sick Mag̲h̲ribī; this anecdote, related by Dozy ( Suppl., s.v.) is very well known and is probably responsible for leading Moroccan scholars to adopt the form attributed to the Prophet. L. Bauer ( Wörterbuch der arabischen Umgangsprache 2, Wiesbaden 1957, 402), heard kusukson/ kusk…

b. Marzawayh (Marzōye) al-Daylamī , Abu ’l-Ḥusayn (Ibn K̲h̲allikān) or Abu ’l-Ḥasan (other sources), poet who used the Arabic language, originally a Zoroastrian but becoming a convert to Islam in 394/1004 at the hands of al-S̲h̲arīf al-Raḍī (359-406/970-1016 [ q.v.]), dying in 428/1037. The famous S̲h̲īʿī poet and naḳīb of the descendants of the Prophet took charge of the education of his protégé, into whom he inculcated not only the basic principles of S̲h̲īʿism but also the necessary skills for him to act as a secretar…

, Abū Marwān al-Dimas̲h̲ḳī al-Ḳibṭī , is chiefly known as one of the first advocates of free will [see Ḳadariyya ], at the same time as Maʿbad al-Ḏj̲uhanī [ q.v.]. The son of a freed slave of ʿUt̲h̲mān b. ʿAffān, he appears, like Maʿbad, to have been the disciple of a Christian from ʿIrāḳ, but he lived in Damascus where he held the position of secretary in the chancellery. Al-Ḏj̲āḥiẓ ( Bayān , iii, 29) mentions him on the same footing as Ibn al-Muḳaffaʿ, Sahl b. Hārūn and ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd, and even one so strictly orthodox as al-ʿAsḳalānī acknowledged his professional ability ( Lisān al-Mizān …

b. ʿīsā b. Manṣūr b. Muḥammad , Tād̲j̲ al-Dīn , grammarian, poet and adīb , originally from the town of Balad on the Tigris, which also had the name of Balaṭ (see Yāḳūt, i, 721), whence his nisba of al-Balaṭī, sometimes given in the diminutive form of al-Bulayṭī. Abu ’l-Fatḥ went first of all to teach in Syria, and then, when Saladin assumed power in Egypt (567/1171), he migrated to Cairo where the new sultan allotted to him a fixed stipend and appointed him to teach grammar and the Ḳurʾān in one of the mosque…

, (a.) “crow”. In view of the diversity of their meanings the Arabic words formed from the three consonants g̲h̲ , r and b cannot be traced to a single root, and it is probable that in the course of the history of the language there came about a convergence of terms with different origins; thus, g̲h̲urāb is too reminiscent of the Latin corvus for us to consider it a mere coincidence; moreover, early Arab philologists considered g̲h̲urāb to be independent, ¶ since they made to derive from it such words as g̲h̲urba , ig̲h̲tirāb , etc. which imply an idea of estrangemen…

, ʿumayla b. al-aʿzal b. k̲h̲ālīd al-ʿadawanī , a personage of the end of the D̲j̲āhiliyya, said have been the first to fix the diya or pecuniary composition for murder at 100 camels and the last to lead the pilgrims, either at the departure for ʿArafāt ( ifāḍa ) or from al-Muzdalifa to Minā ( id̲j̲āza ), since the sources disagree on this point, and the more careful authors merely use the expression dafaʿa bi ’l-nās . This man, who probably owed his kunya to this function of his, a privilege of the Ḳaysī tribe of ʿAdwān (see Ibn al-Kalbī-Caskel, Tab. 92 …

, Abū Bakr Aḥmad b. Zuhayr (= Abū K̲h̲aythama) b. Ḥarb b. S̲h̲addād al-Nasāʾī al-Bag̲h̲dādī , traditionist, genealogist, historian and poet, born at Nasāʾ in 185/801, died at Bag̲h̲dād in 279/892 (the dates 205/820 and 299/911-2 are probably too late). The son of Abū K̲h̲ayt̲h̲ama (d. 243/857), who was the author of a K. al-Musnad and a K. al-ʿIlm ( Fihrist , Cairo ed., 321), he was the pupil of Ibn Ḥanbal in ḥadīt̲h̲ and fiḳh , of Muṣʿab al-Zubayrī in genealogy, of al-Madāʾinī in history and of Muḥammad b. Sallām in literature. The Fihrist mentions among his works K. al-Muntamīn (?), K. al-Aʿrā…

, a minor Arab poet of the 1st/7th century whom Ibn Sallām ( Ṭabaḳāt , 485-9) places in the 3rd rank of Islamic poets. His genealogy varies with the different authors (Ibn al-Kalbī-Caskel, Tab. 165, no doubt provides the most accurate one), and very little is known of his life. Probably born during the earliest years of the Hid̲j̲ra , he made his appearance at the time of the battle of Ṣiffīn (37/657) as an intimate of Muʿāwiya, of whom, like most of the Tag̲h̲lib [ q.v.], he was a passionate supporter. The conflict with ʿAlī inspired him to write a number of poems, in particular…

, Ḳurays̲h̲ite notable of the clan of Taym b. Murra, at the end of the 6th c. A.D. He acquired such wealth from the caravan and slave trade that he possessed one of the largest fortunes in Mecca (Ps.-Ḏj̲āḥiẓ, Maḥāsin (van Vloten), 165; Ibn Rusta, 215; Masʿūdī, Murūd̲j̲ , vi, 153 ff.; Lammens, La Mecque à la veille de l’Hégire , index). He surrounded himself with unusual luxury (being nick-named ḥāsī ‘l-d̲h̲ahab , because he used to drink from a golden cup), and was the owner of the two singing-girls called "Locusts of ʿĀd" ( Ḏj̲arādatā ʿĀd ) whom he offered to Umayya b…

al-Yas̲h̲kurī , a pre-Islamic Arab poet to whom is attributed principally a ḳaṣīda which mediaeval critics regarded as the seventh of the muʿallaḳāt [ q.v.]. The information that we possess in respect of his life deserves no credence, and the poem that is the cause of his renown is in itself so suspect that Ṭāhā Ḥusayn considers it to be totally apocryphal (cf. also al-Ḏj̲āḥiẓ, Ḥayawān , iii, 449, on the questions of other verses). This ḳaṣīda, in k̲h̲afīf metre and with -āʾū rhyme (with an iḳwāʾ in one verse in -āʾī ), is said by legendary tradition to have been …